Great Chaco – Wikipedia

The Gran Chaco , sometimes simply indicated as Chaco , (probably from the term in Quechua la , hunting territory ) is one of the main geographical regions of South America, extends for the current territories of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay, between the Paraguay and Paraná rivers and the Andean plateau.

The Grand Chaco is a moderately humid region and in some semiaridal areas, not always suitable for the proliferation of life and urban settlements. However, its southern part (the so -called Chaco Austral), belonging mostly to Argentina, is a fairly rainy territory ( first 500  mm per year in Formosa e first 200 -first 300  mm to Reconquista) which makes him particularly propitious to agricultural and forestry exploitation.

In consideration of the latitudes in which it extends is a very hot region with a subtropical climate. However, due to seasonal twenty (and especially the Antarctic currents) great thermal variations can occur between the different seasons or even between the day and night.
In this way in the Salinas Grandes area, located in the south-east limit of the Gran Chaco, during the summers (and especially in January) the temperatures exceed the 44 °C , while near Asunción not rarely in some nights of July (winter) the temperatures drop almost to reach the 0 °C , and in Santa Cruz de la Sierra the so -called can be verified Surazos (always in July) which consist of a lowering of the temperature at almost 10 degrees despite being a very north area of ​​the tropic of Capricorn.

The ecosystem of the Gran Chaco is unique and is slowly being destroyed by human colonization with the introduction of extensive farms, vegetation fires, and irresponsible agricultural decisions.
Fortunately, in recent years many groups have been trying to protect it.

The original inhabitants in the pre -Columbian era were mainly belonging to the group called the Pámpidos, later after the Spanish conquest, the Region suffered important migratory flows from belonging to the Guaraní group and from the East from belonging to Andine cultural groups.

Since 1880, the presence of populations of European origin in the whole great chaco grew.

Mennoniti arrived in the Paraguayan part of the region from Canada in the 1920s; Many people came from the USSR in the 1930s, and even more after the Second World War. These created some of the most populous inhabited centers of the Gran Chaco.

Indigenous populations of the Gran Chaco [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

Until the eighteenth century, the Grand Chaco was an almost unexplored territory by Westerners due to the resistance of the Aboriginal populations. The first Europeans who attempted an approach were the Jesuit missionaries including, already in the second half of the sixteenth century, Alonso Barzana whose reports, together with the subsequent studies of the confrere Antonio Maccioni penetrated you in tow of the military expedition organized by the governor of Tucumán, Esteban de Urízar, in 1710 and 1711, ^[first] Pedro Lozano, also Jesuit, who reports the geographical, historical, ethnic-anthropological and linguistic description of the vast territory, contributed to a work of 1733 of the Indie and historian ^[2]

The missionaries of the Society of Jesus were then expelled in 1767 and, while Spanish governments continued in the occupation of the Chaco by submitting the Aborigines, their work was continued by the Franciscans. ^[first]

The Gran Chaco was a territory disputed since 1810, not comprising the totality of the homonymous physical region. Officially, it was probably part of Bolivia, but Paraguay began to drive away the native populations and to establish settlements while Bolivia did not care about this practically uninhabited area. Subsequently this territory became disputed by the two states until it leads to the Chaco war (1932-1935).

Probably the real trigger of the war was the suspicion of the presence of oil in the Boreal Chaco, a region delimited to the south by the Pilcomayo river and east by the Paraguay river. In addition, Bolivia saw in the Paraguay river the possibility of exporting oil to the sea by ship being a country without outlets on the sea after losing the peaceful coast in a previous war. Subsequently, peace was signed in 1938 which guaranteed the three quarter -quarters of the Boreal Chaco and Bolivia to Paraguay a corridor up to the Paraguay river.

Camiri was the most important oil center of Bolivia during the seventies and eighties, while Villamontes grew up enormously at the beginning of the 21st century thanks to the proximity to the greatest gas deposits in South America.
In 1995, the Kaa Iya of the Gran Chaco National Park was created in a Chaco Bolivian area. It is administered solely by indigenous populations that include the Izoceño Guaraní, the Ayoreodade, and the Chiquitans.