Sangre Grande

Grande got its name from a river. Spanish Surveyors in the late 1770s found that the water to two of the tributaries of the Oropouche River was as red as blood. The Spanish name for blood is 'Sangre', so they called the larger tributary 'Sangre Grande,' grande meaning 'big' in Spanish; and they called the smaller river 'Sangre Chiquito,' chiquito being the Spanish word for 'small'. In 1897 the extension of the railway in Arima opened Sangre Grande for large scale development.