Eldorado is a

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

in the Mexican

state State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

Sinaloa Sinaloa (), officially the (), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, compose the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 18 municipalities, and its capital city is Culiacán Rosales. It is located in northwest Mexic ...

. It is located about south of the state capital of

Culiacán Culiacán, officially Culiacán Rosales, is a city in northwestern Mexico, the capital and largest city of both Culiacán Municipality and the state of Sinaloa. The city was founded on 29 September 1531 by the Spanish conquistadors Lázaro de ...

. It was created from the municipality of Culiacán in 2021 and it became operational on 1 November 2024.

Geography

The municipality of Eldorado is located at the mouth of the

San Lorenzo River The San Lorenzo River () is a river in the U.S. state of California. The name San Lorenzo derives from the Spanish language for "Saint Lawrence" due to its reported sighting on that saint's feast day by Spanish explorers. Its headwaters origin ...

in central Sinaloa. To the north and the east, it borders the ''sindicaturas'' or administrative subdivisions of

Costa Rica Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica, is a country in Central America. It borders Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, Panama to the southeast, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, as well as Maritime bo ...

, and

Emiliano Zapata Emiliano Zapata Salazar (; 8 August 1879 – 10 April 1919) was a Mexican revolutionary. He was a leading figure in the Mexican Revolution of 1910–1920, the main leader of the people's revolution in the Mexican state of Morelos, and the insp ...

in the municipality of

. It borders the lagoon, a

Ramsar site A Ramsar site is a wetland site designated to be of international importance under the Ramsar Convention,8 ha (O) *** Permanent 8 ha (P) *** Seasonal Intermittent < 8 ha(Ts) **

Gulf of California The Gulf of California (), also known as the Sea of Cortés (''Mar de Cortés'') or Sea of Cortez, or less commonly as the Vermilion Sea (''Mar Vermejo''), is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean that separates the Baja California peninsula from ...

to the south. Eldorado has a

desert climate The desert climate or arid climate (in the Köppen climate classification ''BWh'' and ''BWk'') is a dry climate sub-type in which there is a severe excess of evaporation over precipitation. The typically bald, rocky, or sandy surfaces in desert ...

History

On the San Lorenzo River just north of the present-day municipal seat of Eldorado is the site of Navito, which was inhabited by the and peoples in pre-Hispanic times. The Spanish expedition of

Nuño de Guzmán Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán (1558) was a Spanish conquistador and colonial administrator in New Spain. He was the governor of the province of Pánuco (province), Pánuco from 1525 to 1533 and of Nueva Galicia from 1529 to 1534, and president of the ...

reached Navito in 1531 and founded the settlement of San Miguel nearby, although they soon moved their settlement to present-day Culiacán. In 1856, and his wife Alejandra de la Vega acquired lands around Navito, where they built a textile factory named El Coloso and a

sugar mill A sugar cane mill is a factory that processes sugar cane to produce raw sugar or plantation white sugar. Some sugar mills are situated next to a back-end refinery, that turns raw sugar into (refined) white sugar. The term is also used to refer ...

named La Aurora. In 1900, the Redo family built a new sugar mill named Eldorado, which gave its name to the surrounding settlement. In 1917, Eldorado became a ''sindicatura'' or municipal subdivision of Culiacán. The writer Inés Arredondo spent her childhood summers in Eldorado. The idea of establishing an independent municipality of Eldorado first appeared in the 1970s, but various attempts to achieve this had failed before the movement was rekindled in 2020. Finally, on 5 March 2021, the Sinaloa state congress approved the elevation of the ''sindicatura'' of Eldorado in the municipality of Culiacán to an independent municipality. The decree establishing the municipality went into force on 23 March 2021.

Administration

Eldorado held its first elections as an independent municipality in 2024. The municipal government of Eldorado consists of a

municipal president A ''presidente municipal'' ( English: "municipal president") is the chief of government of municipios in Mexico. This title was also used in the Philippines during the Spanish and American colonial periods; it is comparable to a mayor of the tow ...

, a councillor (

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

: ''síndico''), and six trustees (''regidores''), three elected by

relative majority A plurality vote (in North American English) or relative majority (in British English) describes the circumstance when a party, candidate, or proposition polls more votes than any other but does not receive more than half of all votes cast. For ...

and three by

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to any electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to political divisions (Political party, political parties) amon ...

. Eldorado is administratively subdivided into four ''sindicaturas'' respectively headquartered at the localities of Eldorado, Leopoldo Sánchez Celis, Las Arenitas, and Guadalupe Victoria.

Demographics

In the 2020 Mexican Census, the localities that now comprise the municipality of Eldorado recorded a population of 46,628 inhabitants. The municipal seat, also named Eldorado, recorded a population of 14,772 inhabitants in the 2020 Census. The next largest localities in the municipality are Leopoldo Sánchez Celis and Guadalupe Victoria, which recorded populations of 3411 and 2288 respectively in the 2020 Census.

Economy

Eldorado's economy relies on agriculture irrigated by the San Lorenzo River; commerce; and fishing, in particular

shrimp farming Shrimp farming is a form of aquaculture that takes place in marine or freshwater environments, producing shrimp or prawns (crustaceans of the groups Caridea or Dendrobranchiata) for human consumption. However, the industry has raised concerns abou ...

. Sugar has been cultivated in Eldorado since 1900, and its

is the only one still operating in Sinaloa today. Eldorado has several beaches that serve as tourist attractions.

Geography

History

Administration

Demographics

Economy

References

Further reading