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Villamontes (or: ''Villa Montes'') is a town in the
Tarija Department Tarija () is a department in Bolivia. It is located in south-eastern Bolivia bordering with Argentina to the south and Paraguay to the east. According to the 2012 census, it has a population of 482,196 inhabitants. It has an area of . The city ...
in south-eastern
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 ...
. Also it is called the benemerita town (well-deserving of the mother country) due to its importance during the
Chaco War The Chaco War ( es, link=no, Guerra del Chaco, gn, Cháko ÑorairõVillamontes Municipio Villamontes (or: ''Villa Montes'') is a town in the Tarija Department in south-eastern Bolivia. Also it is called the benemerita town (well-deserving of the mother country) due to its importance during the Chaco War in the 1930s. Location '' ...
and situated at 388 m above sea level, on the left bank of
Río Pilcomayo Pilcomayo (in Hispanicized spelling) (Quechua Pillkumayu or Pillku Mayu, ''pillku'' red, ''mayu'' river, "red river", Guarani Ysyry Araguay ) is a river in central South America. At long, it is the longest western tributary of the Paraguay Rive ...
where the river crosses the Sierra del Aguarague mountain range and flows southeast into the Chaco-Foreland.


Geography

Villamontes is located in the subhumid
tropical The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator. They are defined in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere at S. The tropics are also referred to ...
zone, with a distinct
dry season The dry season is a yearly period of low rainfall, especially in the tropics. The weather in the tropics is dominated by the tropical rain belt, which moves from the northern to the southern tropics and back over the course of the year. The te ...
from June to September. West of the town in a north-southerly direction ranges the sub
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 ...
''Sierra del Aguarague'', with a summit of 1,390 m 7 km west of Villamontes. The town is crossed by ''Río Caiguami'' which discharges into ''Río Pilcomayo'' on the southern outskirts of Villamontes. Villamontes has recorded the hottest temperature ever in Bolivia, , several times, most recently on 29 October 2010.


History

During the
Chaco War The Chaco War ( es, link=no, Guerra del Chaco, gn, Cháko ÑorairõParaguay Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...
(1932–1935) Villamontes accommodated the headquarters of the Bolivian Army. During the final stage of the war, the main lines of defense commanded by General
Bernardino Bilbao Rioja Bernardino Bilbao Rioja (20 May 1895 in Arampampa – 13 May 1983 in La Paz) was a Bolivian officer who served during the Chaco War (1932–35). He pioneered the use of air forces in combat (the first to be used in this capacity in Sout ...
were situated here. Villamontes became famous by the so-called "Corralito de Villamontes" (1934), when the head of state, Dr.
Daniel Salamanca Urey Daniel Domingo Salamanca Urey (8 July 1869 – 17 July 1935) was a Bolivian politician who served as the 33rd president of Bolivia from 1931 to 1934 until he was overthrown in a ''coup d'état'' on November 27, 1934, during the country's ...
, was arrested by army units during his stay at Villamontes, and on 28 November 1934 was substituted in a
coup d'état A coup d'état (; French for 'stroke of state'), also known as a coup or overthrow, is a seizure and removal of a government and its powers. Typically, it is an illegal seizure of power by a political faction, politician, cult, rebel group, m ...
by vice president
José Luis Tejada Sorzano José Luis Tejada Sorzano (12 January 1882 – 4 October 1938) was a Bolivian lawyer, economist, and politician who served as the 34th president of Bolivia from 1934 to 1936. The last president to be a member of the Liberal Party, Tejada Sor ...
.


Population

Villamontes had a population of 11,086 inhabitants in 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 ...
), 16,214 inhabitants in 2001 (census), and has more than 20,000 inhabitants by 2007. In the official data of the census 2012, the municipality of Villa Montes has 39,800 inhabitants which is an increase more than 100% compared to the 2001 census. Reason for the explosive increase has been the deployment of
oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...
and
gas Gas is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being solid, liquid, and plasma). A pure gas may be made up of individual atoms (e.g. a noble gas like neon), elemental molecules made from one type of atom (e.g. oxygen), or ...
fields in this region since the early 1990s.


References


External links


Map of Province


{{Authority control Populated places in Tarija Department