Lázaro Cárdenas () is a port city in

Michoacán Michoacán, formally Michoacán de Ocampo (; Purépecha: ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Michoacán de Ocampo ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Michoacán de Ocampo), is one of the 32 states which comprise the Federal Entities of ...

bordered to the east by

Guerrero Guerrero is one of the 32 states that comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 81 municipalities and its capital city is Chilpancingo and its largest city is Acapulcocopied from article, GuerreroAs of 2020, Guerrero the pop ...

. Lázaro Cárdenas is located in the southern part of the

Mexican state The states of Mexico are first-level administrative territorial entities of the country of Mexico, which is officially named Mexico, United Mexican States. There are 32 federal entities in Mexico (31 states and the capital, Mexico City, as a sepa ...

. It was formerly known as Los Llanitos, but changed its name as a tribute to

Lázaro Cárdenas del Río Lázaro is a Spanish or Portuguese-based given name or surname. Notable people with the name include: Given name * Lázaro (footballer, born 1990), full name Lázaro Vinícius Alves Martins, Brazilian footballer * Lázaro (footballer, born 2002), f ...

, a Michoacán-born politician who was

president of Mexico The president of Mexico ( es, link=no, Presidente de México), officially the president of the United Mexican States ( es, link=no, Presidente de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos), is the head of state and head of government of Mexico. Under the Co ...

from 1934 to 1940. The city's coordinates are , where the

Río Balsas The Balsas River (Spanish Río Balsas, also locally known as the Mezcala River, or Atoyac River) is a major river of south-central Mexico. The basin flows through the states of Guerrero, México, Morelos, and Puebla. Downstream of Ciudad Altam ...

drains into the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

. In the 2005 census, the city's population was 74,884. It is served by Lázaro Cárdenas Airport. The municipality of Lázaro Cárdenas, which has an area of , had a total population of 162,997 in 2005, and includes the metropolitan area of city, which includes the communities of Las Guacamayas, La Orilla, and La Mira y Guacamayas.

History

When known as Los Llanitos, it formed part of the municipality of Arteaga. In 1932 it was given town status and named Melchor Ocampo, after politician

Melchor Ocampo Melchor Ocampo (5 January 1814 – 3 June 1861) was a Mexican lawyer, scientist, and politician. A mestizo and a radical liberal, he was fiercely anticlerical, perhaps an atheist, and his early writings against the Catholic Church in Mexico gain ...

. On April 12, 1937, during the governorship of José María Mendoza Prado, the state congress decreed the creation of the municipality of Melchor Ocampo del Balsas. The name of the municipality changed again on November 17, 1970, to Lázaro Cárdenas, in honor of the popular former president who had died the previous month. In 2006, steelworkers working in a steel plant went on strike, causing numerous injuries and deaths. In July 2007, a ship was caught by Mexican officials at the

port of Lázaro Cárdenas The Port of Lázaro Cárdenas () is the largest Mexican seaport and one of the largest seaports in the Pacific Ocean basin, with an annual traffic capacity of around 25 million tonnes of cargo and 2,200,000 TEU. In November 2003, the Mexican Nav ...

, which originated from

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

, after traveling through the

Port of Long Beach The Port of Long Beach, also known as the Harbor Department of the City of Long Beach, is a container port in the United States, which adjoins Port of Los Angeles. Acting as a major gateway for US–Asian trade, the port occupies of land wit ...

with 19 tons of

pseudoephedrine Pseudoephedrine (PSE) is a sympathomimetic drug of the phenethylamine and amphetamine chemical classes. It may be used as a nasal/sinus decongestant, as a stimulant, or as a wakefulness-promoting agent in higher doses. It was first characteri ...

, a raw material needed for the manufacturing process of the drug

methamphetamine Methamphetamine (contracted from ) is a potent central nervous system (CNS) stimulant that is mainly used as a recreational drug and less commonly as a second-line treatment for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and obesity. Methamph ...

. The Chinese owner

Zhenli Ye Gon Zhenli Ye Gon (born January 31, 1963 in Shanghai) is a Chinese-Mexican businessman currently under suspicion of trafficking pseudoephedrine or ephedrine precursor chemicals into Mexico from Asia. He is the owner and legal representative of Un ...

was found to have $206 million at his Mexico City mansion. It went undetected at Long Beach.

Air travel

The city is served by the Lázaro Cárdenas Airport.

Port

Lázaro Cárdenas is home to a deepwater

seaport A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Ham ...

that handles

container A container is any receptacle or enclosure for holding a product used in storage, packaging, and transportation, including shipping. Things kept inside of a container are protected on several sides by being inside of its structure. The term ...

, dry bulk, and liquid cargo. The port also exports automobiles from various Mexican assembly plants to markets in southeast Asia and South America.Trains Magazine, November 2003 (Vol 73-Issue 11) ISSN 0041-0934, "Kansas City Southern Bets Big on Mexico" by Roy Blanchard, Page 70 The port handled 1.24 million TEU in 2012 and is expanding to a capacity of 2.2 million TEU annually. Cargo moves to and from the port by road and rail equally, with rail service provided exclusively by

Kansas City Southern de México Kansas City Southern de México (KCSM), formerly Transportación Ferroviaria Mexicana (TFM), is a company dedicated to freight transportation using rail in the northeastern part of Mexico. KCSM is fully owned and operated by Kansas City Southern ...

. The port is expected to become a major container facility due to congestion at the U.S. ports of

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

and

Long Beach Long Beach is a city in Los Angeles County, California. It is the 42nd-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 466,742 as of 2020. A charter city, Long Beach is the seventh-most populous city in California. Incorporate ...

and its relative proximity to major cities such as

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Kansas City The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more ...

, and

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

. In preparation for the port's increased capacity, railway and highway infrastructure running north–south through the center of Mexico has been upgraded to handle the anticipated increase in volume of goods bound for the United States using this transportation corridor. If a proposed government-backed

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

port is built at

Punta Colonet, Baja California Punta Colonet (Chuwílo Ksaay (''dry arroyo'') in the Kiliwa language) is a town located in Ensenada Municipality, Baja California, Mexico. Located south of the city of Ensenada, the community is located in an agriculturally productive region o ...

, goods flowing to U.S. states like

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

and

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

could bypass the congested Los Angeles region with closer access to those markets, providing increased competition with Lázaro Cárdenas.

References

Link to tables of population data from Census of 2005
INEGI: Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informática
Michoacán
Enciclopedia de los Municipios de México * ''Trains'' magazine, 1 October 2006.
Travel Directory & Guide Lazaro Cardenas Michoacan, port, beaches, hotels

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacan Municipalities of Michoacán Populated places established in 1932 Port cities and towns on the Mexican Pacific coast

History

Air travel

Port

See also

References

External links