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

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

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 ...

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 ...

. The population of the city was 78,523 and of the municipality was 134,394 inhabitants, according to the

INEGI The National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI by its name in es, Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informática) is an autonomous agency of the Mexican Government dedicated to coordinate the National System of Stat ...

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

Aztec The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those g ...

s, 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 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 ...

downstream . Being the nearest

port 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 ...

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...

, 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

export An export in international trade is a good produced in one country that is sold into another country or a service provided in one country for a national or resident of another country. The seller of such goods or the service provider is an ...

s. Tuxpan is now primarily a grain port, with emphasis on

soybean The soybean, soy bean, or soya bean (''Glycine max'') is a species of legume native to East Asia, widely grown for its edible bean, which has numerous uses. Traditional unfermented food uses of soybeans include soy milk, from which tofu an ...

s and

maize Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...

. 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 In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the ''metropole, metropolit ...

of some hundreds of former Confederate (Southern U.S.) officers, soldiers and diplomats was established.

Climate

Tuxpan experiences a

tropical climate Tropical climate is the first of the five major climate groups in the Köppen climate classification identified with the letter A. Tropical climates are defined by a monthly average temperature of 18 °C (64.4 °F) or higher in the cool ...

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 An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a ship designed for the bulk cargo, bulk transport of petroleum, oil or its products. There are two basic types of oil tankers: crude tankers and product tankers. Crude tankers move large quant ...

-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 Commercial may refer to: * a dose of advertising conveyed through media (such as - for example - radio or television) ** Radio advertisement ** Television advertisement * (adjective for:) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and s ...

shipping Freight transport, also referred as ''Freight Forwarding'', is the physical process of transporting Commodity, commodities and merchandise goods and cargo. The term shipping originally referred to transport by sea but in American English, it h ...

traffic in the city of

, 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 The Mexican Navy is one of the two independent armed forces of Mexico. The actual naval forces are called the ''Armada de México''. The ''Secretaría de Marina'' (''SEMAR'') (English: Naval Secretariat) includes both the ''Armada'' itself and ...

's Gulf fleet. As such, it is the home port for several

warship A warship or combatant ship is a naval ship that is built and primarily intended for naval warfare. Usually they belong to the armed forces of a state. As well as being armed, warships are designed to withstand damage and are usually faster a ...

s 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 The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

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 Raul, Raúl and Raül are the Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Galician, Asturian, Basque, Aragonese, and Catalan forms of the Anglo-Germanic given name Ralph or Rudolph. They are cognates of the French Raoul. Raul, Raúl or Raül may re ...

Che Guevara Ernesto Che Guevara (; 14 June 1928The date of birth recorded on /upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Ernesto_Guevara_Acta_de_Nacimiento.jpg his birth certificatewas 14 June 1928, although one tertiary source, (Julia Constenla, quoted ...

and other fighters of the

Cuban Revolution The Cuban Revolution ( es, Revolución Cubana) was carried out after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état which placed Fulgencio Batista as head of state and the failed mass strike in opposition that followed. After failing to contest Batista in cou ...

from Mexico to

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

in 1956 for the purpose of overthrowing the regime of

Fulgencio Batista Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar (; ; born Rubén Zaldívar, January 16, 1901 – August 6, 1973) was a Cuban military officer and politician who served as the elected president of Cuba from 1940 to 1944 and as its U.S.-backed military dictator ...

. A small museum near the river has photographs and other related memorabilia.

Education

Facultad de Ciencias Biologicas y Agropecuarias

Universidad Veracruzana Universidad Veracruzana (Spanish for ''University of Veracruz'') is a public autonomous university located in the Mexican state of Veracruz. Established in 1944, the university is one of the most important in the southeast region of México. It ...

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 Niquero is a municipality and town in the Granma Province of Cuba. It is located in the coastal region of the province, bordering the Gulf of Guacanayabo. Cape Cruz (''Cabo Cruz''), the westernmost point of the province is located in this munici ...

( Granma,

)

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