Zapoco Forest

The Zapocó basin lies in the wooded country of Chiquitania in eastern Bolivia. Streams descend through a landscape of forested hills and lowlands; the Chiquitano word zapocós itself means a stream. The region was home to many Indigenous peoples before Jesuit missionaries founded the settlements of Chiquitos in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. People from diverse groups were brought together in these missions, contributing to the later Chiquitano communities.