Santa Cruz Department, Bolivia

Santa Cruz Department

Department Flag Motto: Siempre libres cruceños seamos Anthem: Bajo el cielo más puro de América
Capital	Santa Cruz de la Sierra
Largest city	Santa Cruz de la Sierra
Official languages	Spanish, Portuguese, Guaraní
Provinces	15
Area  - total  - % de Bolivia	Place nº 1 370,621 km² 33.74%
Population  - Total (2005)  - % of Bolivia  - Density	Place nº 2 2,433,602 26.08% 6.57hab./km²
Creation	July 23, 1826
Governor	Ruben Costas (APB)
Senators	Oscar Ortiz (PODEMOS) Jorge Agulera (PODEMOS) Guido Guardia (MAS)
Deputies	25 out of 130
Calling Code:	+ (591) 3
ISO 3166-2	BO-S
Abbreviations	SC
Website	http://www.santacruz.gob.bo

Santa Cruz, with an area of 370,621 km², is the largest of the nine constituent departments of Bolivia. In the 2001 census, it reported a population of 2,029,471. The capital is the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra. The state is one of the wealthiest states in Bolivia with huge reserves of natural gas. Highlighting the cultural, economic, and political divides between the people of the highlands (occident) and lowlands (orient) of Bolivia, the efforts by the Bolivian president Evo Morales to introduce land reforms and redistribute the natural gas revenues with the poorer indigenous people in western Bolivia, alongside promoting and enacting ethnocentrist measures while further centralizing political power, has spurred on divisions within the country and calls and action for greater regional/departmental autonomy.^[1]

Government and administration

According to current Constitution, the highest authority in the department lies with the governor. The former figure of prefect was appointed by the President of the Republic till 2005, when the prefect for the first time was elected by popular vote to serve for a five-year term. In 2010 the first governor was elected according to the implementation of autonomy after a struggle for almost a decade by the people of Santa Cruz.

Santa Cruz also has a Departmental Assembly (Asamblea Departamental), which derives but differs from the previous Departmental Council (Consejo Departamental). It is a state legislature with limited legislation powers, being able to make laws in certain subjects in exclusivity and in some others in concurrence with the state legislative branch.

Economy

The department covers a vast expanse of territory in eastern Bolivia, much of it rainforests, extending from the Andes to the border with Brazil. The department's economy depends largely on agriculture, with sugar, cotton, soybeans and rice being grown. The amount of land cultivated by modern farming techniques is increasing rapidly in the Santa Cruz area, where weather allows for two crops a year.

In recent years, the discovery of natural gas in the department has led to plans for the development of a regional natural gas industry that is likely to boost the local economy. Bolivia’s energy minister said two proposed liquefied petroleum gas plants may allow the country to boost supplies to Brazil and Argentina by 2010, easing a shortage of the fuel after a lack of investment reduced output. The processing plants would be built in Santa Cruz and each would produce about 200 tons of liquefied petroleum gas a day. The plants would help turn a deficit of gas into a “surplus”.

The department also hosts El Mutún, the world's second largest iron ore reserve (after Carajás in Brazil) and largest magnesium deposits are also located there. Located in the Germán Busch Province in the Santa Cruz Department of Bolivia, near Puerto Suárez, El Mutún extends across the border into Brazil, where it is called the Serrania de Jacadigo. Also known as the "Serrania Mutún", it has an area of about 75 square kilometers. Its estimated reserves are about 40.205 billion tons of iron ore of 50% iron, mainly in hematite and magnetite form, and in lesser quantities in siderite and manganese minerals. This can be compared with an estimate of the total world reserves of iron ore: 800 billion tons of crude ore containing more than 230 billion tons of iron.

In July 2004, the people voted in a nation-wide referendum to allow for regulated exportation of the gas.^[2]

Geography

Santa Cruz Deartment is the largest of the Bolivian departments and covers a wide and diverse area. In the west lies a series of temperate Sub-Andean ranges and valleys while to the north and south lies two different lowlands areas; the Beni and Chaco lowlands respectively. To the northeast lies the flat Llanos Chiquitanos areas and beyond these the Serranías Chiquitanas ranges. In the far east the departments have small parts of the huge Pantanal wetland.

Demographics

The first settlers of Santa Cruz were mainly Spaniards that accompanied Ñuflo de Chávez, as well as Guarani natives from Paraguay, and some Flemings, Portuguese, Germans and Italians working for the Spanish crown.^[3]Among the first settlers there were also Sephardic Jews^[4] recently converted to Christianity who were persecuted in by the inquisition in Spain. Santa Cruz has a multicultural population: 78% of the population is White of European descent, 15% is mestizo with both Native and European ascendants and 7% Natives.

Climate

At 416 meters above sea level, it is warm and tropical most of the year. Winters are short and last only 2–3 months but can get very cold very suddenly. "Surazos" (southerly winds that blow in from Argentina) can drop the temperature by as much as 30 degrees overnight. This extreme cold lasts only a few days at a time and the beautiful, sub-tropical Santa Cruz is pleasant throughout most of the year. Here the climate varies by geographical zone: temperate to cold in the western sierras and warm to hot and humid as one descends into the extensive plains.

Provinces

The Department of Santa Cruz is divided into 15 provinces.

Province	Capital	Area (km²)	Population (2005)
Andrés Ibáñez	Santa Cruz de la Sierra	4,821	1,549,849
Ignacio Warnes	Warnes	1,216	62,417
José Miguel de Velasco	San Ignacio	65,425	64,517
Ichilo	Buena Vista	14,232	82,952
Chiquitos	San José	31,429	70,319
Sara	Portachuelo	6,886	42,157
Cordillera	Lagunillas	86,245	108,843
Vallegrande	Vallegrande	6,414	27,691
Florida	Samaipata	4,132	29,850
Obispo Santiesteban	Montero	3,673	166,267
Ñuflo de Chávez	Concepción	54,150	116,101
Ángel Sandoval	San Matías	37,442	14,362
Manuel Maria Caballero	Comarapa	2,310	22,142
Germán Busch	Puerto Suárez	24,903	37,637
Guarayos	Ascensión	20,293	38,498

Call for autonomy

Main article: Santa Cruz autonomy referendum, 2008

Eastern provinces in Bolivia including the Santa Cruz has majority of the natural gas reserves. Bolivian president Evo Morales is planning to introduce legislation to tackle the poverty in the country by redistrubuting the wealth of the nation.^[5]

In May 2008, the government of Santa Cruz began conducting a referendum for autonomy from the national government over, among other things, strains between the local government and President Evo Morales.Morales's attempts to change the constitution have been fiercely opposed by opposition governors who run five of Bolivia's nine regions. Final results from the referendum showed that 85.6% of participating voters supported autonomy.

Languages

The languages spoken in the department are mainly Spanish and Quechua due to the migrating waves from the west side of the country. The following table shows the number of those belonging to the recognized group of speakers.^[6]

Language	Department	Bolivia
Quechua	256,480	2,281,198
Aymara	52,698	1,525,321
Guaraní	45,574	62,575
Another native	19,167	49,432
Spanish	1,846,263	6,821,626
Foreign	100,345	250,754
Only native	40,796	960,491
Native and Spanish	315,064	2,739,407
Spanish and foreign	1,559,541	4,115,751

Places of interest

• Kaa-Iya del Gran Chaco National Park and Integrated Management Natural Area
• Tucavaca Valley Municipal Reserve

References

1. ^ Anti-Morales protests hit Bolivia
2. ^ Gas Referendum
3. ^ Al Margen de mis Lecturas, by Marcelo Terceros Banzer. Published September 1998
4. ^ History of the Jewish People, written by Eli Birnbaum.
5. ^ Morales offers dialogue to rivals
6. ^ obd.descentralizacion.gov.bo (Spanish)

External links

• Santa Cruz Travel Guide
• Weather in Santa Cruz

Coordinates: 18°25′05″S 65°20′42″W / 18.418°S 65.345°W / -18.418; -65.345