Integrated studies and revisions of sedimentary basins and associated magmatism in Peru and Bolivia (8-22°S) show that this part of western Gondwana underwent rifting during the Late Permian-Middle Jurassic interval. Rifting started in central Peru in the Late Permian and propagated southwards into Bolivia until the Liassic/Dogger, along an axis that coincides with the present Eastern Cordillera. Southwest of this region, lithospheric thinning developed in the Early Jurassic and culminated in the Middle Jurassic, producing considerable subsidence in the Arequipa basin of southern Peru. This ~ 110-Ma-long interval of lithospheric thinning ended ~ 160 Ma with the onset of Malm-earliest Cretaceous partial rift inversion in the Eastern Cordillera area. The lithospheric heterogeneities inherited from these processes are likely to have largely influenced the distribution and features of younger compressional and/or transpressional deformations. In particular, the Altiplano plateau corresponds to a paleotectonic domain of "normal" lithospheric thickness that was bounded by two elongated areas underlain by thinned lithosphere. The high Eastern Cordillera of Peru and Bolivia results from Late Oligocene-Neogene intense inversion of the easternmost thinned area. © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.