The Nazas River is a

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of w ...

located in northern

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 ...

, in the states of Coahuila and Durango. It is part of the

endorheic An endorheic basin (; also spelled endoreic basin or endorreic basin) is a drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water, such as rivers or oceans, but drainage converges instead into lakes ...

Bolsón de Mapimí The Bolsón de Mapimí is an endorheic, or internal drainage, basin in which no rivers or streams drain to the sea, but rather toward the center of the basin, often terminating in Swamp, swamps and Ephemeral lake, ephemeral lakes. It is located in ...

. It is only long, but irrigates an area of in the middle of the desert. The Nazas is also nurtured by the San Juan, Ramos, Potreritos, del Oro, Nazas, Santiago,

Tepehuanes Tepehuanes Municipality is a municipality in the Mexican state of Durango. It is located in the North West of Durango at 25°12'"-26°25'"N 105°23'"-106°40'"W, at an elevation of about 1,830 meters (6000 feet). The municipal seat is at Sa ...

and Peñón Blanco rivers. The river starts at the

Sierra Madre Occidental The Sierra Madre Occidental is a major mountain range system of the North American Cordillera, that runs northwest–southeast through northwestern and western Mexico, and along the Gulf of California. The Sierra Madre is part of the American ...

. The aboriginal title for this stream is ''Tlahualilo'', coming from the Nahuatl words ''tlalli'' meaning "fertile land" and ''ahualila'', meaning "water for irrigation".

Etymology

The Nazas took its name when the

Spaniards Spaniards, or Spanish people, are a Romance ethnic group native to Spain. Within Spain, there are a number of national and regional ethnic identities that reflect the country's complex history, including a number of different languages, both in ...

, during the

conquest of Mexico The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, also known as the Conquest of Mexico or the Spanish-Aztec War (1519–21), was one of the primary events in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. There are multiple 16th-century narratives of the eve ...

in the early 1500s, saw the original inhabitants on the shore of the river fishing with some artifacts similar to baskets, whose Spanish name is 'nasa', for that reason it became known as the 'river of nazas'.

Ecology

The Nazas watershed contains considerable desertic habitat, outside of the immediate

riparian zone A riparian zone or riparian area is the interface between land and a river or stream. Riparian is also the proper nomenclature for one of the terrestrial biomes of the Earth. Plant habitats and communities along the river margins and banks a ...

. A large variety of flora and fauna populate the Nazas Basin, with a variety of succulent native plants. One of the widespread flora is the

ocotillo ''Fouquieria splendens'' (commonly known as ocotillo (), but also referred to as buggywhip, coachwhip, candlewood, slimwood, desert coral, Jacob's staff, Jacob cactus, and vine cactus) is a plant indigenous to the Sonoran Desert and Chihuahuan ...

. A number of freshwater fishes are found in the Nazas River, including ''

Notropis nazas The Nazas shiner (''Notropis nazas'') is a species of cyprinid fish. It is endemic to Mexico and known from Nazas River at Santiago Papasquiaro in the Durango Durango (), officially named Estado Libre y Soberano de Durango ( en, Free and Sove ...

''.

Geography and economy

The river acts as a geographic division between the cities of Gómez Palacio in Durango and

Torreón Torreón () is a city and seat of Torreón Municipality in the Mexican state of Coahuila. As of 2021, the city's population was 735,340. The metropolitan population as of 2015 was 1,497,734, making it the ninth-biggest metropolitan area in ...

in Coahuila. The city of Torreón is named after a tower that was built in the area to monitor the water level of the Nazas from afar.''Torreon''
/ref> The Nazas has served as one of the most important natural resources enabling development in the

Laguna Region The Comarca Lagunera or La Comarca de la Laguna ("region of lagoons") is a region of northern Mexico occupying large portions of the states of Durango and Coahuila, with rich soils produced by periodic flooding of the Nazas and Aguanaval rivers. ...

since the middle of the 19th century. All of its waters are locked in Francisco Zarco and Lázaro Cardenas dams, both located in Durango, which have significantly reduced the once mighty flow of the river. However, Coahuila receives an annual share by mutual agreement between the state governments. Indeed, on its course, the Nazas fills smaller water bodies like the Palmito dam (in Torreón) and the Santiaguillo lagoons. The river ends in the now-drained Mayrán Lagoon and the Caimán Lakes in the Tlahualilo region. The river was an important shooting location for the film ''

The Wild Bunch ''The Wild Bunch'' is a 1969 American epic Revisionist Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O'Brien, Ben Johnson and Warren Oates. The plot concerns an aging outlaw gang on th ...

'' (1969). In the celebrated scene where a bridge is dynamited, the Nazas stands in for the Rio Grande. There is an amateur annual kayak competition on the Nazas River between the cities of Rodeo and Lerdo in Durango.

Notes

External links

Río Nazas at Torreon government site
{coord, 25, 36, 34, N, 105, 00, 40, W, region:MX_source:kolossus-ruwiki, display=title Rivers of the Sierra Madre Occidental Rivers of Coahuila Rivers of Durango

Etymology

Ecology

Geography and economy

See also

Notes

Further reading

External links