Pando Department

Department Flag Flag A flag is a piece of fabric with a distinctive design that is usually rectangular and used as a symbol, as a signaling device, or decoration. The term flag is also used to refer to the graphic design employed by a flag, or to its depiction in another medium.The first flags were used to assist... Department Coat of Arms Coat of arms A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth... Motto: ¡Fuerza, trabajo y fe! (Force, work and faith!) Anthem: Tierra santa vestida de gloria (Holy land,dressed in glory)
Capital	Cobija Cobija The Bolivian city of Cobija is located about 600 km north of La Paz in the Amazon Basin on the border of Brazil and Peru. Cobija lies on banks of the Rio Acre across from the Brazilian city Brasiléia. Cobija lies at an elevation of ca...
Largest city	Cobija Cobija The Bolivian city of Cobija is located about 600 km north of La Paz in the Amazon Basin on the border of Brazil and Peru. Cobija lies on banks of the Rio Acre across from the Brazilian city Brasiléia. Cobija lies at an elevation of ca...
Official language Official language An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically a nation's official language will be the one used in that nation's courts, parliament and administration. However, official status can also be used to give a... s	Spanish Spanish language Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
Provinces	5
Area Area Area is a quantity that expresses the extent of a two-dimensional surface or shape in the plane. Area can be understood as the amount of material with a given thickness that would be necessary to fashion a model of the shape, or the amount of paint necessary to cover the surface with a single coat...  - total  - % of Bolivia	Place nº 5 63,827 km² 5.82%
Population Population A population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals...  - Total (2005)  - % of Bolivia  - Density Density The mass density or density of a material is defined as its mass per unit volume. The symbol most often used for density is ρ . In some cases , density is also defined as its weight per unit volume; although, this quantity is more properly called specific weight...	Place nº 9 60,995 0.7% 0.96 hab/km²
Creation	September 24, 1938
Prefect Prefect Prefect is a magisterial title of varying definition....	Rafael Bandeira (interim)
Senators	Manuel Limachi Quispe (MAS) Mirtha Da Costa Ferreira (MAS) Roger Pinto Molina Roger Pinto Molina Roger Pinto Molina is a Bolivian right-wing politician.Molina was born in Santa Rosa, Beni. He was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1997, from the single-member constituency 67 in Pando as a Nationalist Democratic Action candidate...  (PPB Plan Progress for Bolivia – National Convergence Plan Progress for Bolivia – National Convergence is a coalition that has been Bolivia's largest national opposition political party since the 2009 general elections. PPB-CN is a Bolivian political alliance of the right-wing formed in advance of the 2009 elections... ) Carmen Eva Gonzales Lafuente (PPB Plan Progress for Bolivia – National Convergence Plan Progress for Bolivia – National Convergence is a coalition that has been Bolivia's largest national opposition political party since the 2009 general elections. PPB-CN is a Bolivian political alliance of the right-wing formed in advance of the 2009 elections... )
Deputies	5 out of 130
Calling Code:	+ (591) 3
Time Zone Time zone A time zone is a region on Earth that has a uniform standard time for legal, commercial, and social purposes. In order for the same clock time to always correspond to the same portion of the day as the Earth rotates , different places on the Earth need to have different clock times... :	UTC-4
ISO 3166-2 ISO 3166-2:BO ISO 3166-2:BO is the entry for Bolivia in ISO 3166-2, part of the ISO 3166 standard published by the International Organization for Standardization , which defines codes for the names of the principal subdivisions of all countries coded in ISO 3166-1.Currently for Bolivia, ISO 3166-2 codes are...	BO-N
Abbreviations	PA
Website Website A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...	http://www.pando.gob.bo

Pando is a department of Bolivia

Bolivia

Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...

, with an area of 63827 square kilometres (24,643.7 sq mi), adjoining the border with Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

. Pando has a population 66,689 (2005 census). Its capital is the city of Cobija

Cobija

The Bolivian city of Cobija is located about 600 km north of La Paz in the Amazon Basin on the border of Brazil and Peru. Cobija lies on banks of the Rio Acre across from the Brazilian city Brasiléia. Cobija lies at an elevation of ca...

.

The department, which is named after former president Jose Manuel Pando

José Manuel Pando

José Manuel Inocencio Pando Solares was President of Bolivia between October 1899 and August 1904. Born in Luribay , he studied medicine, joined the army during the War of the Pacific against Chile , and later dedicated himself to exploring his country's vast and thinly populated lowland forests...

 (1899–1905), is divided into five provinces.

Although Pando is rich in natural resources, the poverty level of its inhabitants is high, due largely to a lack of roads effectively linking the province to the rest of the country and the presence of tropical diseases typical of life in the Amazonian rain forest. The main economic activities are agriculture, timber and cattle.

At an altitude of 280 meters above sea level in the northwestern jungle region, Pando is located in the rainiest part of Bolivia. Pando also has a hot climate, with temperatures commonly above 26 degrees Celsius (80 Fahrenheit).

Pando is the least populous department in Bolivia, the most tropical (lying closest to the Equator in the Amazonian Basin), and the most isolated, due to an absence of effective roads linking it to the rest of the country. It was organized at the beginning of the 20th century from what was left of the Acre Territory, lost to Brazil as a result of the so-called Acre War (1903). Its capital city of Cobija (the smallest of all the Bolivian departmental capitals) was named after the much-lamented Bolivian port of the same name on the Pacific Ocean, part of an area lost to Chile

Chile

Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

 following the War of the Pacific

War of the Pacific

The War of the Pacific took place in western South America from 1879 through 1883. Chile fought against Bolivia and Peru. Despite cooperation among the three nations in the war against Spain, disputes soon arose over the mineral-rich Peruvian provinces of Tarapaca, Tacna, and Arica, and the...

.

Although backward and remote, Pando is densely forested and close to navigable waterways leading to the Amazon River

Amazon River

The Amazon of South America is the second longest river in the world and by far the largest by waterflow with an average discharge greater than the next seven largest rivers combined...

 and from there on to the Atlantic Ocean

Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...

. The department underwent a rubber

Rubber

Natural rubber, also called India rubber or caoutchouc, is an elastomer that was originally derived from latex, a milky colloid produced by some plants. The plants would be ‘tapped’, that is, an incision made into the bark of the tree and the sticky, milk colored latex sap collected and refined...

 boom in the late 19th century and early 20th century, along with the northern part of nearby Beni department. The "boom," however, turned into a collapse of the rubber industry when synthetic rubber

Synthetic rubber

Synthetic rubber is is any type of artificial elastomer, invariably a polymer. An elastomer is a material with the mechanical property that it can undergo much more elastic deformation under stress than most materials and still return to its previous size without permanent deformation...

 was discovered.

Culturally, the Pandinos are considered part of the so-called Camba

Camba

"Camba" is a word long used in Bolivia to refer to the indigenous population in the western tropical region of the country, or to those born in the area of Santa Cruz, Beni, and Pando ....

 culture of the Bolivian lowlands, similar to the people of the country's other two tropical departments, Beni

Beni Department

Beni, sometimes El Beni, is a northeastern department of Bolivia, in the lowlands region of the country. It is the second largest department in the country , covering 213,564 square kilometers , and it was created by supreme decree on November 18, 1842 during the administration of General José...

 and Santa Cruz. Many of Pando's original settlers moved from nearby Beni.

Autonomy movement

Far from the centers of power in Bolivian society, Pando has recently linked its fate with that of Santa Cruz and Beni, which (along with Tarija and Chuquisaca) are demanding increased autonomy for the departments at the expense of the central government. The government of Leopoldo Fernández

Leopoldo Fernández

Leopoldo Fernández Ferreira is a Bolivian politician. A member of Social and Democratic Power Fernández was Prefect of the northern Bolivian department of Pando from 2006 to 2008....

 strongly backed autonomy for the department, in alliance with other governors of the eastern media luna (half-moon, so known for their combined geographic shape). Nationwide referenda on autonomy held on July 2, 2006, were approved in all four departments. A second referendum to approve a statute of autonomy was held by each department in mid-2008, despite being declared illegal by the National Electoral Court in March. Left-wing and pro-Morales social movements boycotted the votes. Pando's referendum, held on June 1, 2008, won 82% approval among those who voted, but 46.5% of the registered electorate did vote, the highest abstention rate in the four departments holding such referenda. Considerable social unrest took place in 2008, culminating in the spectacular arrest in September of Prefect Leopoldo Fernández, stemming from the massacre at El Porvenir

Porvenir Massacre

The Porvenir Massacre was a deadly ambush in the early hours of September 11, 2008, allegedly organized by Prefectural authorities of the Bolivian Department of Pando, as part of a civil coup d'état against the government of Evo Morales by members of the right-wing...

 of anti-autonomy backers of President Evo Morales

Evo Morales

Juan Evo Morales Ayma , popularly known as Evo , is a Bolivian politician and activist, currently serving as the 80th President of Bolivia, a position that he has held since 2006. He is also the leader of both the Movement for Socialism party and the cocalero trade union...

.

Provinces of Pando

• Abuná
  Abuná Province
  Abuná is one of the five provinces of the Bolivian department of Pando and is situated in the department's northern central parts. It has its name from Río Abuná, the border river to neighbouring Brazil.- Location :...
  
  
• Federico Román
  Federico Román Province
  Federico Román is one of the five provinces of the Bolivian department of Pando and is situated in the department's northeastern parts. Its name honours General Federico Román.- Location :...
  
  
• Madre de Dios
  Madre de Dios Province
  Madre de Dios is one of the five provinces of the Bolivian Pando department and is situated in the department's southern parts. Its name derives from Río Madre de Dios which forms the province's northern border. - Location :...
  
  
• Manuripi
  Manuripi Province
  Manuripi is one of the five provinces of Pando Department in Bolivia and is situated in the department's north-western parts. Its name derives from Manuripi River which passes the province from West to East- Location :...
  
  
• Nicolás Suárez
  Nicolás Suárez Province
  Nicolás Suárez is one of the five provinces of the Bolivian Pando department and is situated in the department's northwestern parts. Its name honors Nicolás Suárez Callaú who owned major parts of today's Pando and Beni Departments in the times of the caoutchouc-boom.- Location :Nicolás Suárez...
  
  

Languages

The predominat language in the department is Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

. The following table shows the number of those belonging to the recognized group of speakers.

Language	Department	Bolivia
Quechua Quechua languages Quechua is a Native South American language family and dialect cluster spoken primarily in the Andes of South America, derived from an original common ancestor language, Proto-Quechua. It is the most widely spoken language family of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, with a total of probably...	1,708	2,281,198
Aymara Aymara language Aymara is an Aymaran language spoken by the Aymara people of the Andes. It is one of only a handful of Native American languages with over three million speakers. Aymara, along with Quechua and Spanish, is an official language of Peru and Bolivia...	1,848	1,525,321
Guaraní Guaraní language Guaraní, specifically the primary variety known as Paraguayan Guaraní , is an indigenous language of South America that belongs to the Tupí–Guaraní subfamily of the Tupian languages. It is one of the official languages of Paraguay , where it is spoken by the majority of the population, and half of...	35	62,575
Another native	861	49,432
Spanish Spanish language Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...	45,969	6,821,626
Foreign	7,719	250,754
Only native	336	960,491
Native and Spanish	3,676	2,739,407
Spanish and foreign	44,491	4,115,751

External links

• Pando Travel Guide
• Weather in Pando
• Pando Official website
• Bolivia 9/11: Bodies and Power on a Feudal Frontier by Bret Gustafson, July 14, 2009