Vallegrande

Valle Grande (Spanish for "big valley ") is a small town in the department of Santa Cruz in the South American Andes State of Bolivia.

Location in near space

Valle Grande is the administrative seat of the province of Valle Grande and Valle Grande central place in the municipality and is situated at an altitude of 2041 m at the headwaters of the Río La Cienega.

Geography

Valle Grande is located in a valley of the Cordillera Oriental on the edge of the eastern Andes. It has its sheltered location in a spacious valley a mild climate. The economic focus is on agriculture (fruits, maize, cotton, rice and tobacco) and the livestock industry. Valle Grande is a regionally important market town.

The average annual temperature of the region is 18 ° C (see climate chart Valle Grande) and varies only slightly between 15 ° C in July and 20 ° C from November to January. The annual rainfall is about 700 mm, with a distinct dry season from May to September, with monthly rainfall less than 25 mm, and a humidity season from December to February, more than 100 mm month precipitation.

History

Valle Grande was founded by the Spanish in 1612 as Ciudad de Jesús y Montes Claros de los Caballeros del Valle Grande. It developed in the 18th and 19th centuries for urban and cultural center of the region and had in 1900 a population of 25.000. In the 20th century Valle Grande lost with the rise of Santa Cruz de la Sierra in importance.

1967, the revolutionary Che Guevara was captured and shot in nearby La Higuera. The body was taken to Valle Grande, exhibited, photographed and then secretly buried at the airfield. After one of the participants then broke his silence, the remains of Che Guevara in 1997 found, exhumed and transferred to Cuba.

Traffic network

Valle Grande is located 240 km south west of Santa Cruz, the capital of the department of the same name. From Santa Cruz the paved highway Ruta 7 leads in a westerly direction to Cochabamba and reached after 187 km on Samaipata and the small town of La Angostura Mataral. From there, the Ruta 22 branches off to the south and reaches 53 km Valle Grande.

The city is also connected via an airfield to the regional flight network.

Population

The population of the city of Valle Grande has risen in the past two decades by about two-thirds:

Sons and daughters of the town

• Julio Terrazas Sandoval, Archbishop of Santa Cruz de la Sierra and cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church