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 and situated at 388 m above sea level, on the left bank of Río Pilcomayo 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 ...
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 longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is long, wide (widest between 18°S – 20°S l ...
''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 t ...
(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 were situated here.
Villamontes became famous by the so-called "Corralito de Villamontes" (1934), when the head of state, Dr. Daniel Salamanca Urey, 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 ...
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 inc ...
), 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 fields in this region since the early 1990s.