Bolivia's Tropical Boomtown — the country's largest city and economic engine sits in the lowland tropics of the Amazon basin frontier, a fast-growing city of oil, natural gas, agribusiness, and the gateway to Bolivia's jungle, the Jesuit Mission Circuit, and the dinosaur tracks of Cal Orck'o
Santa Cruz de la Sierra is Bolivia's largest city (and South America's fastest-growing major city in the early 2000s) — an economic powerhouse built on oil, natural gas, soybeans, and cattle, located in the lowland tropical forests of eastern Bolivia rather than the high Andes that most visitors associate with the country. The city is divided by concentric ring roads (anillos) and has a warm climate, a nightlife scene, and a cosmopolitan population that makes it feel nothing like La Paz or Sucre. The Plaza 24 de Septiembre — the central square with the 18th-century Cathedral, the palm trees,…
The Spanish established Santa Cruz de la Sierra in 1561 near the modern-day village of San José de Chiquitos, initially as a base for exploring and pacifying the lowland indigenous peoples (Chiquitanos, Guaranís). The city was moved to its current location in 1622 after repeated flooding and indigenous attacks. For most of Bolivia's colonial and early republican history, Santa Cruz was a minor, isolated frontier city — the high Andes cities of La Paz, Potosí, and Sucre dominated Bolivian political and economic life, and Santa Cruz had no paved road connection to the highlands until the mid-20…