Tuxpan (or Túxpam, fully Túxpam de Rodríguez Cano) is both a municipality and

city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

located in 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 ...

of Veracruz. The population of the city was 78,523 and of the municipality was 134,394 inhabitants, according to the INEGI census of 2005, residing in a total area of . The municipality includes many smaller outlying communities, the largest of which are

Alto Lucero Alto Lucero (formally: Alto Lucero de Gutiérrez Barrios) is a city in the Mexican state of Veracruz. It is located at , some 35 km from state capital Xalapa. It serves as the administrative centre for the surrounding municipality of the same name. ...

and Santiago de la Peña. A local beachside community is also nearby.

Overview

Tuxpan or Túxpam, pronounced in

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 ...

, the language of the ancient Aztecs, literally means "Place of

Rabbit Rabbits, also known as bunnies or bunny rabbits, are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also contains the hares) of the order Lagomorpha (which also contains the pikas). ''Oryctolagus cuniculus'' includes the European rabbit speci ...

s", a compound of ''tochtli'' "rabbit" and ''-pan'' "place". La asunción

The city is located on the banks of the Tuxpan River, which reaches the Gulf of Mexico downstream . Being the nearest port to Mexico City, Tuxpan is an important commercial link for Mexican

import An import is the receiving country in an export from the sending country. Importation and exportation are the defining financial transactions of international trade. In international trade, the importation and exportation of goods are limited ...

s and exports. Tuxpan is now primarily a grain port, with emphasis on soybeans and maize. Off-shore links to oil pipelines are used to transfer petroleum products to and from tanker ships operated by

Pemex Pemex (a portmanteau of Petróleos Mexicanos, which translates to ''Mexican Petroleum'' in English; ) is the Mexican state-owned petroleum company managed and operated by the Mexican government. It was formed in 1938 by nationalization and expr ...

, Mexico's state-owned oil company. As part of the Pemex operations and infrastructure in the city, a facility on the river manufactures and maintains oil rigs for use in the Gulf of Mexico. Calle Tuxpan

In the 1870s, a small colony of some hundreds of former Confederate (Southern U.S.) officers, soldiers and diplomats was established.

Climate

Tuxpan experiences a tropical climate with warm winters and hot summers.

Transport

Port of Tuxpan

Sometimes referred to as the "Puerto de Tuxpan", the port is able to handle supertanker-sized

cargo ship A cargo ship or freighter is a merchant ship that carries cargo, goods, and materials from one port to another. Thousands of cargo carriers ply the world's seas and oceans each year, handling the bulk of international trade. Cargo ships are usu ...

s. Due to increasing commercial shipping traffic in the city of Veracruz, Tuxpan is now the

headquarters Headquarters (commonly referred to as HQ) denotes the location where most, if not all, of the important functions of an organization are coordinated. In the United States, the corporate headquarters represents the entity at the center or the to ...

for the Mexican Navy's Gulf fleet. As such, it is the home port for several warships including three

frigate A frigate () is a type of warship. In different eras, the roles and capabilities of ships classified as frigates have varied somewhat. The name frigate in the 17th to early 18th centuries was given to any full-rigged ship built for speed and ...

s named , and . These ships were originally s built in the 1960s. They were purchased from the United States Navy in the mid to late 1990s after their decommissioning. Tuxpan was also the port of departure for the yacht ''Granma'' that was used to transport

Fidel Castro Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (; ; 13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 200 ...

, his brother Raúl, Che Guevara and other fighters of the Cuban Revolution from Mexico to Cuba in 1956 for the purpose of overthrowing the regime of Fulgencio Batista. A small museum near the river has photographs and other related memorabilia.

Education

Facultad de Ciencias Biologicas y Agropecuarias

Universidad Veracruzana maintains two campus in the city. The first, the Ciencias Biológicas y Agropecuarias was opened in 1975 and offers careers related to the fields of Biology, Veterinary and Agriculture. The second one, the Contaduría Faculty offers careers related to administration and was opened in 1990.

Twin towns

* Niquero ( Granma, Cuba)

References

Link to tables of population data from Census of 2005
INEGI: Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informática
Veracruz
Enciclopedia de los Municipios de México

Notes

External links

Tuxpan municipal governmentDIF Tuxpan
*
Municipal Official InformationEnciclopedia de los Municipios de Mexico
{{Authority control Populated places in Veracruz