The Santo Domingo River in

Oaxaca state ) , population_note = , population_rank = 10th , timezone1 = CST , utc_offset1 = −6 , timezone1_DST = CDT , utc_offset1_DST = −5 , postal_code_type = Postal ...

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 ...

is one of the main tributaries of the

Papaloapan River The Papaloapan River () is one of the main rivers of the Mexican state of Veracruz. Its name comes from the Nahuatl ''papaloapan'' meaning "river of the butterflies". In 1517, Juan de Grijalva's expedition spotted the river, naming it Río de Alva ...

. It is formed by the confluence of the Salado and Grande rivers, which drain the dry Tehuacán and Cuicatlán valleys west of the

Sierra Madre de Oaxaca The Sierra Madre de Oaxaca is a mountain range in southern Mexico. It is primarily in the state of Oaxaca, and extends north into the states of Puebla and Veracruz. Geography The mountain range begins at Pico de Orizaba, and extends in a southeas ...

. The Santo Domingo river flows east through the Sierra Madre, dividing the Sierra Zongolica sub-range to the north from the Sierra Juárez to the south. It joins with the

Valle Nacional River The Valle Nacional River is a river of Oaxaca state in Mexico. The river originates in the Sierra Juárez. The ecology of the region, originally one of pine forests, is threatened by logging, agriculture and grazing. The Valle Nacional flows past ...

above

San Juan Bautista Tuxtepec San Juan Bautista Tuxtepec ( nah, Tōchtepēc, "on the hill of rabbits"), or simply referred to as Tuxtepec, is the head of the municipality by the same name and is the second most populous city of the Mexican state of Oaxaca. It is part of the ...

to form the Papaloapan. Carrying sediment from the mountains, it was a major cause of flooding in the coastal plain of

Veracruz Veracruz (), formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave), is one of the 31 states which, along with Me ...

by reducing the capacity of the Papaloapan to drain the plains. To alleviate these problems, the Cerro de Oro Dam was constructed on the river just above the junction with the Valle Nacional, completed in 1989. The reservoir behind the dam is connected by a channel to Lake Miguel Alemán, the reservoir formed by the

Miguel Alemán Dam The Miguel Alemán Dam is on the Tonto River in the Papaloapan Region of Oaxaca state in southern Mexico, just upstream from the town of Temascal or Nuevo Soyaltepec, forming the Miguel Alemán Lake with an area of 47,800 hectares. The dam opera ...

on the Tonto River.

References

Rivers of Oaxaca Sierra Madre de Oaxaca Papaloapan River {{Mexico-river-stub