Landmark South America
Jesuit Missions of Chiquitos
The Jesuit Missions of Chiquitos are six old towns in Bolivia. Each one has a big church made of wood, with carved wooden columns!
The Jesuit Missions of Chiquitos are six mission towns in the Chiquitos region of eastern Bolivia, founded between 1691 and 1760. Their churches look like large houses, with wide roofs held up by carved wooden columns. They became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1990.
Between 1691 and 1760 (UNESCO's short description says 1696) the Society of Jesus founded mission settlements in the Chiquitos territory of eastern Bolivia, largely inspired by the 'ideal cities' of 16th-century humanist philosophers. UNESCO lists six that remain intact: San Francisco Javier, Concepción, Santa Ana, San Miguel, San Rafael and San José. Their churches blend European architecture with local traditions.
Photo: Daan, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Discover the Missions of Chiquitos
The missions are in Bolivia, a country in South America.
There are six of them, and each is a small town with a church.
The six missions stand in a region of eastern Bolivia called Chiquitanía, on what UNESCO calls the semi-arid frontier of Spanish South America. Their names are San Francisco Javier, Concepción, Santa Ana, San Miguel, San Rafael and San José.
Today they are towns where people live, so UNESCO calls them a living heritage. The protected area, which includes the town centers, covers about 7,161 hectares.
UNESCO describes the six surviving missions as a living yet vulnerable heritage in Chiquitanía. The serial property, inscribed in 1990 under criteria (iv) and (v), covers 7,160.75 ha, including the urban centers of the municipalities where the missions stand; it has no buffer zones.
Because the missions lie within living villages, UNESCO counts modernization as a permanent threat. Bolivia declared them a National Monument on 4 January 1950, and the Ministry of Cultures manages the property.
- Country
- Bolivia
- Founded
- 1691–1760
- Missions
- 6
- World Heritage Site
- 1990
Planned mission towns
Long ago, people built these towns around big plazas.
The church stood on one side of each plaza.
Between 1691 and 1760, members of the Society of Jesus, known as the Jesuits, founded mission towns in Chiquitos. UNESCO says the Jesuits and the local Indigenous people blended European building styles with local traditions, in towns inspired by the 'ideal cities' that thinkers had imagined in the 1500s.
Each town had a rectangular plaza. Houses lined three sides, and the church, workshops and schools filled the fourth side.
The missions, called reducciones in Spanish, followed an idealized urban model: houses regularly spaced along three sides of a rectangular square, with the fourth side reserved for the church, workshops and schools. UNESCO says the Jesuits and the Indigenous people blended European architecture with local traditions.
Unlike other Jesuit missions in South America, those of Chiquitos survived the Jesuits' expulsion in 1767, though the mission system itself had disappeared by the 1850s. UNESCO says the agrarian reform of 1953 brought changes that made these traditional ensembles vulnerable.
Churches like big wooden houses
The churches look like big houses with long, sloping roofs.
Wooden columns hold up the roofs. At Concepción they are carved in twisty shapes.
UNESCO says the churches look like large houses. A big roof slopes down on two sides and stretches out over a porch at the front.
Inside, long walls and rows of wooden columns divide each church into three parts, and more columns hold up galleries along the outside. The carved wooden columns and railings make this style special. Only the church at San José is different: it is built of stone.
UNESCO calls the churches a remarkable adaptation of European Christian religious architecture to local conditions: large houses with a double-sloping roof and a large porch roof overhanging a west gallery. Long walls define three interior naves divided by wooden columns, with two exterior galleries also on columns, a unique type marked by the special treatment of the carved wooden columns and banisters.
San José is the exception: built of stone and inspired by a Baroque model. Many of the churches hold remarkable works of popular art, such as sculptures, paintings, altars and pulpits.
Carved and painted
The front of the church at Concepción is painted with swirly patterns.
The porch columns are twisted like ropes!
UNESCO mentions their rich interior decoration. In the photo of Concepción you can see the painted patterns on the front wall and the twisted wooden columns along the porch.
From the 1970s to the 1990s, the Swiss architect Hans Roth and others restored the missions. They strengthened the churches, replaced lost parts and brought back murals and moldings.
Conservation and rehabilitation ran from the 1970s through the 1990s under the Swiss architect Hans Roth and others, focused on structural reinforcement, restoring lost parts, integrating murals and recovering moldings and cornices (as at San Rafael and Santa Ana).
Since 2007 the Plan Misiones, created with the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and local church bodies, has aimed to improve local people's living conditions by recovering and conserving the mission heritage, with urban management plans and a program for housing and public spaces.
- Church interior
- 3 naves divided by wooden columns
- Exception
- San José, built of stone
- Restoration
- 1970s–1990s
- Protected area
- 7,160.75 ha
Concepción today
This photo shows the church at Concepción, with its tall wooden bell tower.
The ground in front is red earth, and the sky is full of clouds.
This photo shows the church at Concepción, one of the six missions. You can see its wide tiled roof, its porch with twisted wooden columns, its painted front and a tall wooden bell tower beside it. A long, low building with a covered walkway runs along the left.
In front is the open square, with red earth and patches of grass.
The photograph (Daan, uploaded to the Dutch Wikipedia in 2006) shows the church at Concepción from across the square: the double-sloping tiled roof carried out over the porch on carved, spiraling wooden columns, the painted facade, a freestanding wooden bell tower with two clock faces, and a long gallery-fronted building at the left.
It matches UNESCO's description of the type: a large house-like church with a porch roof overhanging the front gallery.
Amazing facts
-
One of the six churches is made of stone instead of wood!
Of the six mission churches, only San José is built of stone. The others follow the wooden, house-like style.
UNESCO notes that the church at San José is the only exception to the wooden type: it is of stone construction and inspired stylistically by a Baroque model.
-
These missions kept going even after the Jesuits had to leave!
Unlike other Jesuit missions in South America, the missions of Chiquitos survived after the Jesuits were sent away in 1767.
Unlike other Jesuit missions in South America, the Chiquitos missions survived the expulsion of the Society of Jesus in 1767, although the reducción system had disappeared by the 1850s.
-
The town plans came from ideas about perfect cities!
The mission towns were largely inspired by the 'ideal cities' that thinkers imagined in the 1500s.
UNESCO says the reducciones were largely inspired by the 'ideal cities' envisioned by 16th-century humanist philosophers.
Words to know
- mission
- a settlement founded by members of a religious order
- plaza
- an open public square in a town
- gable roof
- a roof that slopes down on two sides
- nave
- a long hall that runs down the inside of a church
- gallery
- a long covered walkway open on one side
- restoration
- careful repair that brings an old building back to its earlier state
Discovery challenge
-
Which country are the missions of Chiquitos in?
In which country are the Jesuit Missions of Chiquitos?
The Chiquitos missions stand in the east of which country?
- Bolivia
- Spain
- Canada
Show the answer
Bolivia
Bolivia!
Bolivia, in South America.
Bolivia, in Chiquitanía.
-
What holds up the churches' big roofs?
What holds up the roofs of most of the mission churches?
Except at San José, what material forms the columns that UNESCO singles out?
- Wooden columns
- Steel beams
- Ice blocks
Show the answer
Wooden columns
Wood!
Carved wooden columns.
Carved wood.
-
How many mission towns are there?
How many intact missions does UNESCO list?
How many historic missions make up the World Heritage property?
- 6
- 2
- 60
Show the answer
6
Six!
Six.
Six: San Francisco Javier, Concepción, Santa Ana, San Miguel, San Rafael and San José.
-
Which church is made of stone?
Which mission church is built of stone?
Which church does UNESCO call the only exception, built of stone on a Baroque model?
- San José
- Concepción
- San Rafael
Show the answer
San José
San José!
San José.
San José.
-
What was in the middle of each town?
What was at the center of each mission town's plan?
Around what did the idealized urban model arrange houses on three sides?
- A rectangular plaza
- A round lake
- A tall castle
Show the answer
A rectangular plaza
A big square plaza!
A rectangular plaza.
A rectangular square, with the church on the fourth side.
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For parents & teachers
What children will learn
- Describe how a town can be planned around a central square.
- Explain how builders can mix building styles from different places.
- Explain why old buildings in living towns need protection.
Recommended ages: 4 to 17 · About 15 minutes
Talk about it
- Why might a town be built around a big open square?
- Why might builders use wood instead of stone?
- How can a town change and still keep its old buildings?
Try at home or in class
- Draw a plan of a town with a rectangular plaza: houses on three sides and a church, workshop and school on the fourth.
- Fold a piece of card into a gable roof and hold it up with pencils as columns.
Key vocabulary: mission, plaza, gable roof, nave, gallery, restoration
Where these facts come from
- Wikidata , Wikimedia Foundation (CC0 1.0)
- Jesuit Missions of the Chiquitos , UNESCO World Heritage Centre
- File:Kerk Conception Exterieur.jpg , Wikimedia Commons
- UNESCO World Heritage List , UNESCO World Heritage Centre (Linked as a reference; site facts come from Wikidata)
- Wikimedia Commons , Wikimedia Foundation (Per file (public domain, CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA); see each media record)
Checked, not yet human-reviewed. Last updated November 1, 2026. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.