The Suchiate River (, ) is a river that marks the southwesternmost part of the border between

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

(state of

Chiapas Chiapas, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas, is one of the states that make up the Political divisions of Mexico, 32 federal entities of Mexico. It comprises Municipalities of Chiapas, 124 municipalities and its capital and large ...

) and

Guatemala Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically b ...

(department of San Marcos). From its sources on the southern slopes of the Tacaná volcano in the Sierra Madre range of Guatemala, the 161 km (100 mi) long river flows in a south-southwesterly direction to the border with Mexico at Unión Juárez (), past the border towns Talismán and El Carmen, and then

Ciudad Tecún Umán Ayutla () is a municipality in the San Marcos Department of Guatemala. It is situated along the Suchiate River natural border with Mexico in the southern part of the department. The municipality center is Ciudad Tecún Umán. There is a combined ...

and Ciudad Hidalgo (Chiapas) further downstream, where the

Puente Rodolfo Robles Puente Rodolfo Robles is a bridge across the Suchiate River between Ciudad Hidalgo in the Mexican state of Chiapas and Ciudad Tecún Umán in Guatemala. The bridge is named after Rodolfo Robles, the Guatemalan physician who first described " ...

and a

railway bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or railway) without blocking the path underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somet ...

cross the river, and on to the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

. Its name comes from the

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 Nahuas, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller popul ...

name ''Xochiatl'' meaning "flower-water". The pre-Columbian archaeological site of

Izapa Izapa is a very large pre-Columbian archaeological site located in the Mexican state of Chiapas; it is best known for its occupation during the Late Formative period. The site is situated on the Izapa River, a tributary of the Suchiate River, ...

lies along the river.

References

* *The Prentice Hall American World Atlas, 1984. *Rand McNally, The New International Atlas, 1993.

References

See also