[3] Most of the population lives either in adjacent rural areas or in the city of Cochabamba and they only occupy local dwellings during carnival or other festivals, or on business trips.

There is a food and textile fair in early September that brings in the rural population as well as city folk.

[5] The name Tapacarí comes from the Aymara words Thapa Qhari, "nest of men", or settlement.

In June 1836 the Congress of Tapacarí was held in the town to address the issue of giving president Andrés de Santa Cruz the power to establish the Peru–Bolivian Confederation.

The congress met for ten days under the chairmanship of vice-president Mariano Enrique Calvo Cuellar.