Papaloapan Region

Last updated
Papaloapan
Region
Oaxaca regions and districts.svg
Oaxaco regions - Papaloapam to the north
Coordinates: 18°06′0″N96°07′0″W / 18.10000°N 96.11667°W / 18.10000; -96.11667 Coordinates: 18°06′0″N96°07′0″W / 18.10000°N 96.11667°W / 18.10000; -96.11667
CountryMexico
StateOaxaca
Area
 • Total8,678 km2 (3,351 sq mi)
Population
 (2005)
 • Total429,681

The Cuenca del Papaloapan Region is in the north of the state of Oaxaca, Mexico where the foothills of the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca meet the coastal plain of Veracruz. [1] The principal city is San Juan Bautista Tuxtepec, the second largest in Oaxaca state. [2]

Oaxaca State of Mexico

Oaxaca, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca, is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, make up the 32 federative entities of Mexico. It is divided into 570 municipalities, of which 418 are governed by the system of usos y costumbres with recognized local forms of self-governance. Its capital city is Oaxaca de Juárez.

Mexico Country in the southern portion of North America

Mexico, 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 Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and to the east by the Gulf of Mexico. Covering almost 2,000,000 square kilometers (770,000 sq mi), the nation is the fourth largest country in the Americas by total area and the 13th largest independent state in the world. With an estimated population of over 129 million people, Mexico is the tenth most populous country and the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world, while being the second most populous nation in Latin America after Brazil. Mexico is a federation comprising 31 states plus Mexico City (CDMX), which is the capital city and its most populous city. Other metropolises in the country include Guadalajara, Monterrey, Puebla, Toluca, Tijuana, and León.

Sierra Madre de Oaxaca

The Sierra Madre de Oaxaca is a mountain range in southern Mexico. It is primarily in the state of Oaxaca, and extends north into the states of Puebla and Veracruz.

Contents

Geography

The region is bordered on the east by the Cañada region and on the south by the Sierra Norte region of Oaxaca. On the north it meets the state of Puebla and to the west the state of Veracruz. The region has an area of 8,678 km2 with two districts, Choapan and Tuxtepec. The climate is hot and humid all year, with average temperature 24 °C to 26 °C and average annual precipitation of 2,000mm to 4,500mm.

Sierra Norte de Oaxaca Region in Oaxaca, Mexico

La Sierra Norte de Oaxaca is a heavily wooded region in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico. It is 62 km from the city of Oaxaca on Federal highway 175, heading east towards Tuxtepec. The region is divided into three districts: Ixtlán, which has 26 municipalities, Villa Alta, which has 25 municipalities and Mixe, which has 17 municipalities.

Puebla State of Mexico

Puebla, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Puebla is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 217 municipalities and its capital is the city of Puebla.

Veracruz State of Mexico

Veracruz, formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave, is one of the 31 states that, along with Mexico city, comprise the 32 federative entities of Mexico. It is divided in 212 municipalities and its capital city is Xalapa-Enríquez.

The Papaloapan region has diverse flora and lush vegetation, including amate, fig, locust, mahogany, oak, cedar, aloe, palm and ceiba hormiguillo. Fauna include porcupine, armadillo, jaguar, raccoon, gray fox, brocket deer and white-tailed deer. There is a great variety of birds. The region today suffers from serious pollution in the Papaloapan river and an alarming increase in erosion due to livestock.

Population

Flor de Pina: Oaxacan women on parade in traditional apparel. Calenda primer lunes 2005.JPG
Flor de Piña: Oaxacan women on parade in traditional apparel.

As of the 2005 census, the region had a population of 429,681 inhabitants, or 49.51 inhabitants per square kilometer. The population includes Chinatecs, Mazatec, Mixtecs, Zapotecs and Mestizos, but the indigenous influence is not as visible in social and cultural life as in the other regions of Oaxaca. Given its location in the coastal plain, the region tends to identify itself more with the state of Veracruz than Oaxaca. Before 1958, the region was represented in the Lunes del Cerro festival by the Fandango Jarocho. The Governor Alfonso Perez Gasga then decided to replace the Fandango with a new dance that had a more typical Oaxacan nature, creating the "Flor de Piña" which would eventually represent the region.

Chinantecan languages language family

The Chinantec or Chinantecan languages constitute a branch of the Oto-Manguean family. Though traditionally considered a single language, Ethnologue lists 14 partially mutually unintelligible varieties of Chinantec. The languages are spoken by the indigenous Chinantec people who live in Oaxaca and Veracruz, Mexico, especially in the districts of Cuicatlán, Ixtlán de Juárez, Tuxtepec and Choapan, and in Staten Island, New York.

Zapotec peoples ethnic group

The Zapotecs are an indigenous people of Mexico. The population is concentrated in the southern state of Oaxaca, but Zapotec communities also exist in neighboring states. The present-day population is estimated at approximately 800,000 to 1,000,000 persons, many of whom are monolingual in one of the native Zapotec languages and dialects. In pre-Columbian times, the Zapotec civilization was one of the highly developed cultures of Mesoamerica, which, among other things, included a system of writing. Many people of Zapotec ancestry have emigrated to the United States over several decades, and they maintain their own social organizations in the Los Angeles and Central Valley areas of California.

Economy

The region is the most industrialized in Oaxaca Compania del Tropico2.JPG
The region is the most industrialized in Oaxaca

The region is economically the most active and industrialized in the state. It contains the major Cerro de Oro and Miguel Alemán dams, which play a central role in flood prevention in the Papaloapan River basin in Veracruz, and are important sources of hydroelectric power. [3] Industries include small-scale manufacture of fine wood furniture, sugar mills, chemical plants, refrigeration, fruit packers, paper mills, ethanol distillery and brewery. The region has deposits of oil, gold, uranium, coal and copper that have not yet been exploited.

The Cerro de Oro Dam, also called the Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado Dam, is on the Santo Domingo River in the San Juan Bautista Tuxtepec municipality of the Papaloapan Region of Oaxaca state in southern Mexico. The dam operates in conjunction with the Miguel Alemán Dam, located on the Tonto River to control floods in the Papaloapan basin in Veracruz state. Construction began in 1973 and the dam was completed in May 1989. About 26,000 people were displaced by the project. Water quality in the reservoir is poor and deteriorating, affecting fish catches.

Miguel Alemán Dam dam in Oaxaca, Mexico

The Miguel Alemán Dam is on the Tonto River in the Papaloapan Region of Oaxaca state in southern Mexico, just upstream from the town of Temascal or Nuevo Soyaltepec, forming the Miguel Alemán Lake with an area of 47,800 hectares. The dam operates in conjunction with the Cerro de Oro Dam, located on the Santo Domingo River to control floods in the Papaloapan basin in Veracruz state. Together with the 22,000 hectare reservoir of the Cerro de Oro, which is joined by a channel to the Miguel Alemán Lake, the combined capacity is 13,380 million cubic metres. The lake formed by the dam is scenic, providing income from fishing and tourism. The northwestern shore and islands have been declared a nature reserve. The dam includes the Temascal hydroelectric plant.

Papaloapan River river in Mexico

The Papaloapan River is one of the main rivers of the Mexican state of Veracruz. Its name comes from the Nahuatl papaloapan meaning "river of the butterflies".

With fertile, well-watered soil, pineapple is the primary crop, as well as rice, mango, litchi, banana, sugarcane, watermelon, green pepper, snuff, lemon, rubber, malanga and orange. There are large areas of grassland used for grazing cattle, thoroughbred horses, pigs and poultry. These are affecting soil fertility. Fisheries catch sunfish, tilapia, and red tenhuayaca in the springs, dams and rivers.

History

The region first had contact with Spanish conquistadors who arrived seeking rivers of gold. The first major settlement was the town of Tuxtepec in the year 1811, and on March 15, 1825 it was declared a municipality. During the war of independence, it was the base of the Soyaltepec (Mazatecan) rebels, and there was similar resistance during the Empire of Maximilian.

Mexican War of Independence armed conflict which ended the rule of Spain in the territory of New Spain

The Mexican War of Independence was an armed conflict, lasting over a decade, which had several distinct phases and took place in different regions of the Spanish colony of New Spain. Events in Spain itself had a direct impact on the outbreak of the insurgency in 1810 and in the alliance of insurgent leader Vicente Guerrero and royalist-officer-turned insurgent Agustín de Iturbide in 1821, which brought about independence. Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion of Spain in 1808 touched off a crisis of legitimacy of crown rule, since he had placed his brother Joseph on the Spanish throne after forcing the abdication of the Spanish monarch Charles IV. In many of Spain's overseas possessions the local response was to set up juntas ruling in the name of the Bourbon monarchy. In New Spain, however, peninsular-born Spaniards overthrew the rule of Viceroy José de Iturrigaray (1803–08). In 1810, a few American-born Spaniards in favor of independence began plotting an uprising against Spanish rule. It occurred when the parish priest of the village of Dolores, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, issued the Cry of Dolores on September 16, 1810. The Hidalgo Revolt touched off the armed insurgency for indepedence, lasting until 1821. The colonial regime did not expect the size and duration of the insurgency, which spread from the Bajío region north of Mexico City to the Pacific and Gulf Coasts. In 1820 when Spanish liberals overthrew the autocratic rule of Ferdinand VII and arch-conservatives in New Spain saw independence as a way to maintain their position, former royalists and old insurgents formed an alliance under the Plan of Iguala and forged the Army of the Three Guarantees. The momentum of independence saw the collapse of royal government in Mexico and the Treaty of Córdoba ended the conflict.

Mazatecan languages language family

The Mazatecan languages are a group of closely related indigenous languages spoken by some 200,000 people in the area known as the Sierra Mazateca, which is in the northern part of the state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico, as well as in adjacent areas of the states of Puebla and Veracruz.

Maximilian I of Mexico emperor of Mexico

Maximilian I was the only monarch of the Second Mexican Empire. He was a younger brother of the Austrian emperor Franz Joseph I. After a distinguished career in the Austrian Navy as its commander, he accepted an offer by Napoleon III of France to rule Mexico, conditional on a national plebiscite in his favour. France, together with Spain and the United Kingdom, invaded the Mexican Republic in the winter of 1861, ostensibly to collect debts; the Spanish and British both withdrew the following year after negotiating agreements with Mexico's republican government, while France sought to conquer the country. Seeking to legitimize French rule, Napoleon III invited Maximilian to establish a new pro-French Mexican monarchy. With the support of the French army and a group of Conservative Party monarchists hostile to the Liberal Party administration of the new Mexican president, Benito Juárez, Maximilian was offered the position of Emperor of Mexico, which he accepted on 10 April 1864.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s the federal government became interested in development of the economic potential of the Oaxacan region. Governor Victor Bravo Ahuja, originally from Tuxtepec, gave a strong impetus for development and modernization of the area, promoting agricultural, commercial and industrial development.

Tourist attractions

The region has many spas, with most attractions in the tributaries of the Valle Nacional River such as Zuzul, Los Cocos, Piedra Quemada and Los Sauces. This area has an exquisite tropical climate with clear waters and lush forests inhabited by exotic birds such as toucans, macaws, parrots and pelicans. Ecotourism is the most important tourist activity, the region having numerous streams, caves, swamps and lagoons of sulphurous waters, providing opportunities for forest mountain hiking, horseback riding through the jungle and cave exploration.

Related Research Articles

Tres Valles City and municipality in Veracruz, Mexico

Tres Valles is a town and municipality in the Mexican state of Veracruz, created as a free municipality by decree on November 25, 1988. It is located in the lower reaches of the Papaloapan, and borders the state of Oaxaca and the towns of Tierra Blanca and Cosamaloapan.

San Juan Bautista is the Spanish-language name of Saint John the Baptist. It may refer to:

San Juan Bautista Tuxtepec Place in Oaxaca, Mexico

San Juan Bautista Tuxtepec, or simply referred to as Tuxtepec, is the head of the municipality by the same name and is the second most populous city of the Mexican state of Oaxaca. It is part of the Tuxtepec District of the Papaloapan Region. As of the 2005 census, the city is home to a population of 94,209 and 144,555 in the municipality, though census data are often under reported for various reasons. The municipality resides in the region called La Cuenca, is located 36 feet above sea level, and occupies an area of approximately 580 square miles (1,500 km2). The city itself is surrounded by the Papaloapan River, and lies a few kilometers south of the Cerro de Oro Dam on its tributary the Santo Domingo River. The municipality is bordered by the state of Veracruz in the north, the municipalities of Loma Bonita to the east and San José Chiltepec to the south. It is almost 100 miles (160 km) to the port of Veracruz, 130 miles (210 km) to Oaxaca City, the state capital, and 310 miles (500 km) to Mexico City.

Santa María Jacatepec Place in Oaxaca, Mexico

Santa María Jacatepec is a town and municipality located in the state of Oaxaca 11 km north of the Valle Nacional. “Jacatepec” comes from Nahuatl meaning ‘on jackal hill.’ It is part of the Tuxtepec District of the Papaloapan Region, and is only 30 meters above sea level.

San Felipe Jalapa de Díaz Municipality and town in Oaxaca, Mexico

San Felipe Jalapa de Díaz is a town, and the surrounding municipality of the same name, in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. It is some 50 km west of Tuxtepec, and is part of the Tuxtepec District of the Papaloapan Region.

Temascal, Oaxaca Place in Oaxaca, Mexico

Temascal is a town in the Mexican state of Oaxaca which is the seat of the municipality of San Miguel Soyaltepec. It is part of the Tuxtepec District of the Papaloapan Region. The name Soyaltepec means "hill of palm trees" in Náhuatl but the area also carries the Mazatec name of Naxhingee which means “ragged hill”.

Loma Bonita Municipality and town in Oaxaca, Mexico

Loma Bonita is a town and municipality in Oaxaca in south-western Mexico. The municipality covers an area of 588.15 km². It is part of the Tuxtepec District of the Papaloapan Region. At the beginning Loma Bonita was an informal settlement of young Americans, who has established several campsites in the Oaxaca and Veracruz border area. The municipality has 588.15 km2 of land which it represents the 0.616 percentage of the Oaxacan state

San Juan Bautista Valle Nacional Municipality and town in Oaxaca, Mexico

San Juan Bautista Valle Nacional is a town and municipality in Oaxaca in south-western Mexico. The municipality covers an area of 394.23 km² within the Sierra Juárez mountains. It is part of the Tuxtepec District of the Papaloapan Region. The town lies on the north bank of the Valle Nacional River, a tributary of the Papaloapan River.

San Juan Evangelista is a municipality located in the plains of the Sotavento zone in the central zone of the State of Veracruz, about 260 km from state capital Xalapa. It has a surface of 968.94 km2. It is located at 17°53′N95°08′W.

The Valle Nacional River is a river of Oaxaca state in Mexico. The river originates in the Sierra Juárez, Oaxaca. The ecology of the region, originally one of pine forests, is threatened by logging, agriculture and grazing. The Valle Nacional flows past San Juan Bautista Valle Nacional, and joins the Santo Domingo River to the southwest of San Juan Bautista Tuxtepec to form the Papaloapan River.

Tonto River river in Mexico

The Tonto River is a river of Oaxaca, Mexico that flows from the mountains of Zongolica. It is dammed by the Miguel Alemán Dam near the town of Temascal or Nuevo Soyaltepec, forming the Miguel Alemán Lake. Below the dam, the river flows southeast past San Juan Bautista Tuxtepec, where it joins the Santo Domingo River to form the Papaloapan River.

Santo Domingo River (Oaxaca)

The Santo Domingo River in Oaxaca state, Mexico is one of the main tributaries of the Papaloapan River, rising in the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca and flowing east towards San Juan Bautista Tuxtepec, above which it joins with the Valle Nacional River to form the Papaloapan. Carrying sediment from the mountains, it was a major cause of flooding in the coastal plain of Veracruz by reducing the capacity of the Papaloapan to drain the plains. To alleviate these problems, the Cerro de Oro Dam was constructed on the river just above the junction with the Valle Nacional, completed in 1989. The dam extended the reservoir formed by the Miguel Alemán Dam, located on the Tonto River.

Coixtlahuaca District District in Oaxaca, Mexico

Coixtlahuaca District is located in the northeast of the Mixteca Region of the State of Oaxaca, Mexico. As of 2005 the population was 9,018, down 2.8% from 2000.

Tuxtepec District District in Oaxaca, Mexico

Tuxtepec District is located in the north of the Papaloapan Region of the State of Oaxaca, Mexico.

Indigenous people of Oaxaca

The Indigenous people of Oaxaca are descendants of the inhabitants of what is now the state of Oaxaca, Mexico who were present before the Spanish invasion. Several cultures flourished in the ancient region of Oaxaca from as far back as 2000 BC, of whom the Zapotecs and Mixtecs were perhaps the most advanced, with complex social organization and sophisticated arts.

Luis Pérez Figueroa Mexican general

Luis Pérez Figueroa was a Mexican general who fought in the war of independence that followed the French intervention in Mexico.

References

  1. ↑ "Región Papaloapam". Enciclopedia de los Municipios de México. Archived from the original on 2011-06-16. Retrieved 2010-07-05.
  2. ↑ "Historia". Gobierno de San Juan Bautista Tuxtepec, Oax. Retrieved 2010-07-05.
  3. ↑ Gerardo Cruickshank (1972). "Some Problems of the Papaloapan River Basin" (PDF). Proceedings of University Seminar on Pollution and Water Resources. Columbia University. Retrieved 2010-06-30.
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