Puerto Pailas is a canton and town in the

Santa Cruz Department Santa Cruz () is the largest of the nine constituent departments of Bolivia, occupying about one-third (33.74%) of the country's territory. With an area of , it is slightly smaller than Japan or the US state of Montana. It is located in the e ...

in the South American

Andean The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (; ) are the List of mountain ranges#Mountain ranges by length, longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range i ...

Republic of

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

Location

Puerto Pailas is the central town of ''Puerto Pailas Cantón'' and is located in

Cotoca Cotoca is a canton and Municipality of Andrés Ibáñez Province in Santa Cruz Department, Bolivia. The municipality consists of two cantons – Cotoca itself and Puerto Pailas. In 2010 it had an estimated population of 23,951 for the canton and 56 ...

Municipality in

Andrés Ibáñez Province Andrés Ibáñez Province is one of the fifteen provinces of the Bolivian Santa Cruz Department, situated in the western part of the department. Its capital is Santa Cruz de la Sierra which is also the capital of the department. The province was ...

. It is situated at an elevation of 297 m on the left banks of

Río Grande The Rio Grande ( and ), known in Mexico as the Río Bravo del Norte or simply the Río Bravo, is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The length of the Rio G ...

, one of the longest rivers in the Bolivian lowlands, which is 1,200 m wide at this place and is spanned by a road bridge here.

Roads

It sits a strategically important place within the region's road network, located 47 kilometers east of the departmental capital Santa Cruz, on the principal route from that city to Beni, the Chiquitanía, and Brazil. From Santa Cruz the tarmac road ''Ruta 4/Ruta 9'' goes east through

to ''Puerto Pailas'' where it crosses the Río Grande and reaches

Pailón Pailón is a small town in Bolivia. It is in the second municipal section of Chiquitos Province and is east of the city Santa Cruz de la Sierra Santa Cruz de la Sierra (; "Holy Cross of the Mountain Range"), commonly known as Santa Cruz, is ...

on the river's eastern banks. From Pailón, ''Ruta 4'' goes further east for another 587 km before it reaches

Puerto Suárez Puerto Suárez is an inland river port and municipality in Santa Cruz Department, Bolivia. It is located 10 km west of the border with Brazil. Location ''Puerto Suárez'' is located in the province of Germán Busch, Santa Cruz Department a ...

on the

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

ian border, while ''Ruta 9'' goes north to Guayaramerin after 1175 km. At Puerto Pailas, a dirt road leaves the Rutas 4 and 9 in north-westerly direction and goes 4 km to the neighbouring town Montero Hoyos.

Population

The population of the place has increased rapidly over the past two decades. The town had 1,621 inhabitants at the 1992

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses incl ...

, then 2,301 at the 2001 census, and has now 3,141 inhabitants (2009 est.).World Gazetteer
/ref> Due to the population movements over the past decades, the region has a certain amount of

Quechua Quechua may refer to: *Quechua people, several indigenous ethnic groups in South America, especially in Peru *Quechuan languages, a Native South American language family spoken primarily in the Andes, derived from a common ancestral language **So ...

population, in Puerto Pailas Municipality 17.8 percent of the population speak the

Quechua language Quechua (, ; ), usually called ("people's language") in Quechuan languages, is an Indigenous languages of the Americas, indigenous language family spoken by the Quechua peoples, primarily living in the Peruvian Andes. Derived from a common anc ...

References

External links

Map of Andrés Ibáñez Province
{{Santa Cruz Department Populated places in Santa Cruz Department (Bolivia)