Mazapil, Zacatecas
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Mazapil is a municipality in the
Mexican Mexican may refer to: Mexico and its culture *Being related to, from, or connected to the country of Mexico, in North America ** People *** Mexicans, inhabitants of the country Mexico and their descendants *** Mexica, ancient indigenous people ...
state of Zacatecas and the state's largest municipality by area. The
Peñasquito mine The Peñasquito Polymetallic Mine is the fifth largest silver mine in the world and the second largest in Mexico. It is located in north-eastern corner of the State of Zacatecas and is wholly owned by Newmont Goldcorp. It is an open pit operation w ...
, Mexico's largest gold mine, is located in this sparsely populated municipality.


Geography

The municipality of Mazapil is located in northern Zacatecas where it borders three other Mexican states. The Zacatecan municipalities it borders are Melchor Ocampo to the north, General Francisco R. Murguía to the west,
Villa de Cos Villa de Cos is one of 58 municipalities of Zacatecas, Mexico. It is located in the center-east of the state, bordered by the municipalities of Mazapil, Francisco R. Murguia, Río Grande, Felipe Pescador, Fresnillo, Panuco and Guadalupe in Za ...
to the south and
Concepción del Oro Concepción del Oro is the largest city and the seat of the Concepción del Oro Municipality in the Mexican state of Zacatecas , image_map = Zacatecas in Mexico (location map scheme).svg , map_caption = State of Zacat ...
to the east. Mazapil also borders the municipalities of
Catorce Catorce is a municipality in San Luis Potosí in central Mexico. The municipal seat is the ''pueblo mágico'' of Real de Catorce Real de Catorce (; meaning: ''Real unit of currencyof Fourteen''), often shortened to Real, is a village in the Mex ...
, Santo Domingo and
Vanegas Vanegas is a town and municipality in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosí in central Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the n ...
, to the east, all part of
San Luis Potosí San Luis Potosí (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of San Luis Potosí ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de San Luis Potosí), is one of the 32 states which compose the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 58 municipalities and i ...
; San Juan de Guadalupe in the state of
Durango Durango (), officially named Estado Libre y Soberano de Durango ( en, Free and Sovereign State of Durango; Tepehuán: ''Korian''; Nahuatl: ''Tepēhuahcān''), is one of the 31 states which make up the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico, situated in ...
to the west; and Saltillo and
Viesca Viesca () is a town and seat of the surrounding municipality of the same name, located in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila. Named after the third governor of Coahuila and Texas, José María Viesca, Viesca had a population of 19,328 ...
to the north, both in
Coahuila Coahuila (), formally Coahuila de Zaragoza (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Coahuila de Zaragoza ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Coahuila de Zaragoza), is one of the 32 states of Mexico. Coahuila borders the Mexican states of N ...
. Mazapil is Zacatecas's largest and Mexico's twelfth largest municipality, covering an area of and comprising 16.1% of the state's area. Mazapil is situated in the Chihuahuan Desert and has an elevation range between .
Matorral 300px, Springtime in Chilean matorral a few kilometers north of Santiago along the Pan-American Highway Matorral is a Spanish language, Spanish word, along with ''tomillares'', for shrubland, thicket or bushes. It is used in naming and describin ...
vegetation predominates in the mostly arid and semi-arid climate, although open pinyon-juniper woodlands occur in the more elevated regions with their more temperate and partially sub-humid climates. Average annual precipitation in the municipality varies between .


History

Mazapil's name derives from the
Nahuatl Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller ...
place name ''Mazatlpilli'', itself derived from ''mazatl'' "deer" and ''pilli'' "small". The original inhabitants of the Mazapil valley were nomadic Chichimeca peoples known to the Spaniards as Guachichiles. Francisco de Ibarra reached the area in 1554. In 1562, Pedro de Ahumada y Samano reported finding the valley inhabited by 6000 native warriors armed with bows and arrows. Silver mines were first established in the valley in the late 1560s. Mazapil was one of Zacatecas's eleven original subdivisions (then known as ''partidos'') when the state's constitution was enacted in 1825. In 1885 the fall of a
meteorite A meteorite is a solid piece of debris from an object, such as a comet, asteroid, or meteoroid, that originates in outer space and survives its passage through the atmosphere to reach the surface of a planet or Natural satellite, moon. When the ...
in the area during the Andromedids
meteor shower A meteor shower is a celestial event in which a number of meteors are observed to radiate, or originate, from one point in the night sky. These meteors are caused by streams of cosmic debris called meteoroids entering Earth's atmosphere at extre ...
attracted scientific attention, although a cometary origin for the meteorite is now considered unlikely and the timing of its fall has been ascribed to coincidence. In 1907
Gustavo A. Madero Gustavo Adolfo Madero González (16 January 187518 February 1913), born in Parras de la Fuente, Coahuila, Mexico, was a participant in the Mexican Revolution against Porfirio Díaz along with other members of his wealthy family. He was als ...
set up four factories in the municipality for the extraction of guayule rubber. Guayule from the Mazapil region was also exported to the US for rubber production during World War II.


Administration

Mazapil's municipal government comprises a president, secretary, councillor ( Spanish: ''síndico''), and six trustees (''regidores''). The current president of the municipality is Gregorio Macías Zúñiga.


Demographics

In the 2010 Mexican Census, the municipality of Mazapil recorded a population of 17,813 inhabitants living in 4275 households. It recorded a population of 17,457 inhabitants in the 2015 Intercensal Survey. There are 175 localities in the municipality, of which only the municipal seat, also called Mazapil, is classified as urban. Located in the northeast corner of the municipality, it recorded a population of 794 inhabitants in the 2010 Census.


Economy

The main economic activities in Mazapil are mining and agriculture. In 2015, the municipality produced of gold, of silver, 15,563 tonnes of copper, 85,334 tonnes of lead and 207,844 tonnes of zinc. Goldcorp's Peñasquito gold mine, Mexico's largest, is located in Mazapil. Local communities have protested the mine's activities, citing water overuse and contamination, creation of health problems for locals, and inadequate compensation for workers and landowners. The main crops in Mazapil are corn and beans.
Ixtle Ixtle, also known by the trade name Tampico fiber, is a stiff plant fiber obtained from a number of Mexican plants, chiefly species of ''Agave'' and ''Yucca''. The principal source is ''Agave lechuguilla'', the dominant ''Agave'' species in the C ...
fiber and
candelilla wax Candelilla wax is a wax derived from the leaves of the small Candelilla shrub native to northern Mexico and the southwestern United States, '' Euphorbia antisyphilitica'', from the family ''Euphorbiaceae''. It is yellowish-brown, hard, brittle, a ...
are also produced.


References

{{Zacatecas Municipalities of Zacatecas 1825 establishments in Mexico States and territories established in 1825