The Santa Maria River is a river in

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

. It originates on the

Mexican Plateau The Central Mexican Plateau, also known as the Mexican Altiplano ( es, Altiplanicie Mexicana), is a large arid-to-semiarid plateau that occupies much of northern and central Mexico. Averaging above sea level, it extends from the US-Mexico border ...

in the states 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 ...

and

Guanajuato Guanajuato (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Guanajuato ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Guanajuato), is one of the 32 states that make up the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 46 municipalities and its capital city i ...

, and flows westwards. For much of its length, it forms the border between

and

. It carves a canyon through the

Sierra Madre Oriental The Sierra Madre Oriental () is a mountain range in northeastern Mexico. The Sierra Madre Oriental is part of the American Cordillera, a chain of mountain ranges (cordillera) that consists of an almost continuous sequence of mountain ranges that f ...

, where it is joined by the Rio Verde. The Gallinas River merges into it via the 105-meter Tamul Waterfall, downstream of which its name changes to the

Tampaón River The Tampaón River, also known as the Tamuin River, is a river in northeastern Mexico. It is a principal tributary of the Pánuco River, draining portions of San Luis Potosí Guanajuato, Querétaro, and Veracruz states. It is formed by the conflu ...

. The Tampaón continues westwards to join the

Moctezuma River The Moctezuma River (Río Moctezuma) is a river in Mexico that drains the eastern side of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt (Sierra Nevada). It is a tributary of the Pánuco River and flows through the Mexican states of Hidalgo, Querétaro, and Sa ...

and form the

Pánuco River The Pánuco River ( es, Río Pánuco, ), also known as the ''Río de Canoas'', is a river in Mexico fed by several tributaries including the Moctezuma River and emptying into the Gulf of Mexico. The river is approximately long and passes throug ...

, which empties into the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an oceanic basin, ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of ...

Ciudad Madero Ciudad Madero is a coastal city, located in southeast Tamaulipas in the Gulf of Mexico. It is the seventh most populous city in the state, with a census-estimated 2015 population of 209,175 within an area of 18.0 square miles (46.6 km2) the c ...

References

*Atlas of Mexico, 1975 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/atlas_mexico/river_basins.jpg). *The Prentice Hall American World Atlas, 1984. *Rand McNally, The New International Atlas, 1993. Rivers of San Luis Potosí Rivers of Querétaro Tributaries of the Pánuco River {{Mexico-river-stub

See also

References