Pitiquito | |
---|---|
Coordinates: 30°44′N111°44′W / 30.733°N 111.733°W | |
Country | Mexico |
State | Sonora |
Municipality | Pitiquito |
Town founded | 1694 |
Municipality established | 1914 |
Government | |
• Mayor | Gumercindo Ruiz Lizárraga (2006-09) |
Area | |
• Total | 11,979.96 km2 (4,625.49 sq mi) |
Elevation | 305 m (1,001 ft) |
Population (2005) | |
• Total | 9,236 |
(municipal total) | |
Time zone | UTC-7 (Pacific (US Mountain)) |
• Summer (DST) | UTC-7 (No DST) |
Pitiquito is a small town in Pitiquito Municipality in the northwest of the Mexican state of Sonora.
The municipal area is 11,979.96 km² which makes up 6.46% of the state total. The municipal population counted in 2000 was 9,160. The population of the main settlement and municipal seat was 4,862 in 2000. It is located at an elevation of 305 meters.
In this region the climate is hot and dry with rainfall between 75 and 200 mm a year. Between December and February nighttime temperatures can drop to 8.5 °C below zero while from June to August they can reach 49.5 °C.
When the Spanish arrived the area was populated by various sedentary tribes settled along the banks of the Altar and Magdalena rivers. It was founded by Fr. Eusebio Francisco Kino in 1694 with the name of Natividad del Señor de Pitiquin. In 1768 the Franciscans took over the churches and the name was changed to San Diego de Pitiquin. According to local tradition the town took the name of an Indian chief called "Piti or Pitic". It became a municipality in 1914.
Agriculture covered 6,901 hectares (2000), most of which were irrigated by pumping from wells. Main crops are alfalfa, beans, corn, grapes, sorghum, and the production of fodder for the cattle industry.
Cattle raising is also important with over 30,000 head counted in (2000).
Since this municipality has approximately 170 kilometers of coastline there is also fishing, especially in the settlements of Puerto Libertad and Desemboque. The Mexican power generation parastatal CFE has a large electric plant at Puerto Libertad. A Mexican alternative energy company Biofields is constructing an algae to ethanol system covering several square miles which will process the exhaust from the electric plant.
Of touristic importance is the San Diego del Pitiquito mission, which sits in the center of town. . It is the oldest church with surviving indigenous art in Sonora. The drawings are rough, bold, black lines on a white background. They were discovered after being hidden under whitewash for ages.
The small beach communities along the Gulf of California are also of interest and are yet to be developed. Puerto de la Libertad is the most important and is situated on a paved highway from Hermosillo. It has an attractive bay with fine sand beaches and gentle waves, which invite visitors for practicing aquatic sports such as swimming, sailing and angling. Nearby are the only boojum (Spanish cirio) forests outside Baja California.
The beach town of El Desemboque is a Seri Indian town on the Seri communal property which is partially in the municipality of Pitiquito.
Sonora, officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora, is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is divided into 72 municipalities; the capital city of which being Hermosillo, located in the center of the state. Other large cities include Ciudad Obregón, Nogales, San Luis Río Colorado, and Navojoa.
Santa Ana is a small city and municipal seat of Santa Ana Municipality in the Mexican state of Sonora. It is located 168 kilometres (104 mi) north of the state capital Hermosillo and 100 kilometres (62 mi) south of Nogales on the United States border. The town had a 2005 census population of 10,593 inhabitants.
Eusebio Francisco Kino, SJ, often referred to as Father Kino, was an Italian Jesuit, missionary, geographer, explorer, cartographer, mathematician and astronomer born in the Bishopric of Trent, Holy Roman Empire.
Guaymas is a city in Guaymas Municipality, in the southwest part of the state of Sonora, in northwestern Mexico. The city is 134 kilometres (83 mi) south of the state capital of Hermosillo, and 389 kilometres (242 mi) from the U.S. border. The municipality's formal name is Guaymas de Zaragoza and the city's formal name is the Heroica Ciudad de Guaymas.
The Seri or Comcaac people are an Indigenous group of the Mexican state of Sonora. The majority reside on the Seri communal property, in the towns of Punta Chueca and El Desemboque on the mainland coast of the Gulf of California. Tiburón Island (Tahejöc) and San Esteban Island were also part of their traditional territory. They maintain an intimate relationship with both the sea and the land. They are one of the ethnic groups of Mexico that has most strongly maintained their language and culture throughout the years after contact with Spanish and Mexican cultures.
Bahía Kino is a town part of the Hermosillo Municipality in Sonora, Mexico on the Gulf of California; it was named after Eusebio Kino. It has a population of approximately 7,000 people. The name also applies to the adjacent bay between Tiburón Island and Punta San Nicolás, Sonora. The names Bahía de Kino, Bahía Kino and Kino Bay are used interchangeably.
El Desemboque is a town located 376 km from Hermosillo on the shore of Gulf of California in the Mexican state of Sonora; coordinates N 29° 30' 13", W 112° 23' 43". It is part of the Municipality of Pitiquito, and is one of two major villages on the Seri Indian communal property, the other being Punta Chueca. The Spanish name refers to the fact that the Río San Ignacio meets the sea near that point. The Seri name is literally where the clams lie. It has been a good location to find the small clams Protothaca grata (haxöl). According to the Mexican census of 2010, the town had a population of 287 inhabitants. (The town of El Desemboque described in the prior text is not located in the Pitiquito municipality of Sonora. It is a Seri village about 120 km north of Punta Chueca north of Bahia Kino where the dry Rio Ignacio meets the Gulf of California. The El Desemboque in Pitiquito is west of Caborca at the mouth of Rio Concepcion and is a small village catering to weekenders from Caborca. The Seri may have lived at the El Desemboque west of present-day Caborca in prehistoric times before Spanish arrived as well as the current Seri town north of Bahia Kino. Their oral history has them living as far north as present day Puerto Penasco which was also an O'Odham settlement as well as present-day Bahia Kino and Isla Tiburon .)
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Puerto Libertad is a town and port of the Mexican state of Sonora, Mexico. It is located on the north coast of the Gulf of California, in the municipality of Pitiquito.