Palaú is a town in the
Mexican
Mexican may refer to:
Mexico and its culture
*Being related to, from, or connected to the country of Mexico, in North America
** People
*** Mexicans, inhabitants of the country Mexico and their descendants
*** Mexica, ancient indigenous people ...
state
State may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State
* ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States
* '' Our ...
of
Coahuila
Coahuila (), formally Coahuila de Zaragoza (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Coahuila de Zaragoza ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Coahuila de Zaragoza), is one of the 32 states of Mexico.
Coahuila borders the Mexican states of N ...
. It is located on the eastern boundary of the
Chihuahuan Desert
The Chihuahuan Desert ( es, Desierto de Chihuahua, ) is a desert ecoregion designation covering parts of northern Mexico and the southwestern United States. It occupies much of far West Texas, the middle to lower Rio Grande Valley and the lowe ...
, in the municipality of
Múzquiz. Temperatures in the summertime can easily reach 45 degrees Celsius and the winters are mild but wet. The main industry is
coal mining
Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...
.
When an Austrian engineer discovered these energy riches in the late 19th century, the northern portion of Coahuila quickly transformed from a sparsely populated region of cattle ranchers to an industrial powerhouse. Thousands of Japanese immigrants came seeking work; some of their descendants, with Japanese surnames, are still here. Simabuco is one of several Japanese Surnames and is traced back to Anastacio Simabuco one of the earliest settlers of Palau he is believed to have migrated from Okinawa, Japan at the turn of the 20th century.
Coahuila coal feeds steel mills in
Monclova
Monclova (), is a city and the seat of the surrounding municipality of the same name in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila. According to the 2015 census, the city had 231,107 inhabitants. Its metropolitan area has 381,432 inhabitants and ...
and
Monterrey
Monterrey ( , ) is the capital and largest city of the northeastern state of Nuevo León, Mexico, and the third largest city in Mexico behind Guadalajara and Mexico City. Located at the foothills of the Sierra Madre Oriental, the city is ancho ...
, the country's third-largest city. Two coal-fired electric plants near the
U.S. border
While the United States has relatively complicated maritime boundaries, it shares international land borders with only two nations:
* The Canada–United States border to the north of the contiguous United States and to the east of Alaska, and ...
supply as much as 8 percent of Mexico's electricity.
Population (INEGI 2005): 16,133 (men 8,063; women 8,070)
References
Info
Populated places in Coahuila
{{Coahuila-geo-stub