Posted on September 24, 2020
The nation of Bolivia is divided into nine "departments," which are political units that roughly equal the word "states" in the United States. (Actually, the word "state" means "nation" or "country" as well as - in some places - a smaller political unit inside a country. So confusing!)
Two of these departments are Pando and Santa Cruz. Both of these departments hold their local festivals on September 24.
Let's compare these two departments:
Santa Cruz is much larger; it's around 370 thousand square kilometers (143 thousand square miles), which is close to the size of Montana in the U.S. Pando is less than a fifth of the size, with only around 64 thousand square kilometers (25 thousand square miles); it's closer in size to West Virginia.
There is even more difference between Pando and Santa Cruz when it comes to population. Santa Cruz has more than 3 million inhabitants and is about 23 people per square mile, and Pando has just 110 thousand inhabitants! That's only 4 or 5 people per square mile!
describes Pando as "backwards and remote" and "densely forested." As a landlocked nation, Bolivia counts on rivers that run to the sea and that can be navigated by boat, and Pando has navigable rivers that join up with the mighty Amazon and eventually reach the Atlantic Ocean. Back in the Pando's heyday, rubber trees were harvested and carried off to markets on those rivers.
Santa Cruz is about a third of Bolivia, and it is the richest part of the nation as well. There are huge natural gas reserves and the world's second largest iron ore reserve, and agriculture is very important. But much of the territory is covered with rainforests, so hopefully getting the gas, iron, and farm products isn't TOO disruptive of them! I can imagine that discovery of new pharmaceuticals (medicines) could be a growth industry one day?
Apparently, there are some very nice hotels and tourist destinations in the department of Santa Cruz:
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