Vallegrande
| Vallegrande | ||
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 Vallegrande
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| Coordinates: 18°29′S 64°06′W / 18.483°S 64.100°WCoordinates: 18°29′S 64°06′W / 18.483°S 64.100°W | ||
| Country |
 Bolivia
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| Department | Santa Cruz | |
| Province | Vallegrande | |
| Municipality | Vallegrande | |
| Canton | Vallegrande | |
| Elevation | 6,660 ft (2,030 m) | |
| Population (2001) | ||
| • Total | 6,000 | |
| Climate | Cwb | |
Vallegrande (Spanish: "Big Valley") is a small colonial town in Bolivia, located in the Department of Santa Cruz, some 125 km (bee-line) southwest of Santa Cruz de la Sierra. It is the capital of the Vallegrande Province and Vallegrande Municipality and serves as a regionally important market town. The small town is best known for being the first burial site of revolutionary Che Guevara, after his 1967 execution.
Vallegrande was founded by the Spanish in 1612 under the name Ciudad de Jesús y Montes Claros de los Caballeros del Vallegrande (Town of Jesus and Montes Claros of the knights of Vallegrande). It was intended to serve as a frontier to prevent the constant raids of the Guarani (Chiriguano) warriors that dominated the region. Many of the original inhabitants of Vallegrande were Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jews converted to Catholicism and persecuted by the inquisition in Spain and nearby La Plata and Potosi, for they were suspected to continue to secretly practice Judaism. Others came from Santa Cruz de la Sierra as Vallegrande became the main transit point in the route that connected Santa Cruz with the mines of Peru.
During the 18th and 19th centuries Vallegrande steadily grew and became the urban and cultural center of the region with a population of 25,000 by 1900. In the 20th century, though, concurrent with the rise of the nearby Santa Cruz, Vallegrande's importance gradually declined.
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