Mazapil Municipality Explained

Mazapil
Settlement Type:Municipality
Pushpin Map:Mexico
Pushpin Map Caption:Location in Mexico
Subdivision Type:Country
Subdivision Name: Mexico
Subdivision Type1:State
Seat Type:Seat
Seat:Mazapil
Government Footnotes:[1]
Leader Title:President
Leader Name:Gregorio Macías Zúñiga
Established Title:Established
Established Date:17 January 1825
Area Footnotes:[2]
Area Total Km2:12143.256
Population As Of:2010 Census
Population Total:17813
Pop Est As Of:2015 Intercensal Survey
Pop Est Footnotes:[3]
Population Est:17457
Population Density Km2:auto
Population Blank1 Title:Seat
Population Blank1:794
Timezone:Central
Utc Offset:-6
Timezone Dst:Central
Utc Offset Dst:-5
Coordinates:24.6383°N -101.5553°W
Coordinates Footnotes:[4]
Elevation Point:of seat
Elevation M:2268
Postal Code Type:Postal codes
Postal Code:98230–98287[5]
Area Code Type:Area code
Area Code:842
Website:Official website

Mazapil is a municipality in the Mexican state of Zacatecas and the state's largest municipality by area. The Peñasquito mine, Mexico's largest gold mine, is located in this sparsely populated municipality.

Geography

The municipality of Mazapil is located in northern Zacatecas where it borders three other Mexican states. The Zacatecan municipalities it borders are Melchor Ocampo to the north, General Francisco R. Murguía to the west, Villa de Cos to the south and Concepción del Oro to the east. Mazapil also borders the municipalities of Catorce, Santo Domingo and Vanegas, to the east, all part of San Luis Potosí; San Juan de Guadalupe in the state of Durango to the west; and Saltillo and Viesca to the north, both in Coahuila.[2] Mazapil is Zacatecas's largest and Mexico's twelfth largest municipality,[6] covering an area of [2] and comprising 16.1% of the state's area.[3]

Mazapil is situated in the Chihuahuan Desert and has an elevation range between 1300and(-).[7] Matorral vegetation predominates in the mostly arid and semi-arid climate, although open pinyon-juniper woodlands occur in the more elevated regions with their more temperate and partially sub-humid climates.[8] Average annual precipitation in the municipality varies between 200and(-).[7]

History

Mazapil's name derives from the Nahuatl place name Mazatlpilli, itself derived from mazatl "deer" and pilli "small".[9]

The original inhabitants of the Mazapil valley were nomadic Chichimeca peoples known to the Spaniards as Guachichiles. Francisco de Ibarra reached the area in 1554. In 1562, Pedro de Ahumada y Samano reported finding the valley inhabited by 6000 native warriors armed with bows and arrows. Silver mines were first established in the valley in the late 1560s.[10]

Mazapil was one of Zacatecas's eleven original subdivisions (then known as partidos) when the state's constitution was enacted in 1825.[11] In 1885 the fall of a meteorite in the area during the Andromedids meteor shower attracted scientific attention, although a cometary origin for the meteorite is now considered unlikely and the timing of its fall has been ascribed to coincidence.[12]

In 1907 Gustavo A. Madero set up four factories in the municipality for the extraction of guayule rubber.[9] Guayule from the Mazapil region was also exported to the US for rubber production during World War II.[8]

Administration

Mazapil's municipal government comprises a president, secretary, councillor (Spanish: síndico), and six trustees (regidores).[1] The current president of the municipality is Gregorio Macías Zúñiga.[1]

Demographics

In the 2010 Mexican Census, the municipality of Mazapil recorded a population of 17,813 inhabitants living in 4275 households.[13] It recorded a population of 17,457 inhabitants in the 2015 Intercensal Survey.[3]

There are 175 localities in the municipality,[4] of which only the municipal seat, also called Mazapil, is classified as urban. Located in the northeast corner of the municipality, it recorded a population of 794 inhabitants in the 2010 Census.[2]

Economy

The main economic activities in Mazapil are mining and agriculture.[9]

In 2015, the municipality produced 28543kg (62,927lb) of gold, 942002kg (2,076,759lb) of silver, 15,563 tonnes of copper, 85,334 tonnes of lead and 207,844 tonnes of zinc.[14] Goldcorp's Peñasquito gold mine, Mexico's largest, is located in Mazapil.[15] [16] Local communities have protested the mine's activities, citing water overuse and contamination, creation of health problems for locals, and inadequate compensation for workers and landowners.[17] [18]

The main crops in Mazapil are corn and beans. Ixtle fiber and candelilla wax are also produced.[19]

Notes and References

  1. Web site: H. Ayuntamiento Mazapil . Government of Mazapil . 16 January 2018.
  2. Web site: Mazapil: Datos generales . es . Cédulas de información municipal . . 2013 . 16 January 2018.
  3. Book: Panorama sociodemográfico de Zacatecas 2015 . 66 . INEGI . 2016 . 16 January 2018 . 978-607-739-890-5.
  4. Web site: Sistema Nacional de Información Municipal . es . . 2010 . 16 January 2018.
  5. Web site: Descarga de Códigos Postales . Catálogo Nacional de Códigos Postales . Mexican Postal Service . 11 January 2018 . 16 January 2018.
  6. In 2003 INAFED reported that Mazapil was Mexico's thirteenth largest municipality by area: Web site: Los Municipios con Mayor y Menor Extensión Territorial . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20131017053709/http://www.e-local.gob.mx/wb2/ELOCAL/ELOC_Municipios_de_mayor_y_menor_extension_territo . 17 October 2013 . 16 January 2018 . In 2011, the municipality of Othón P. Blanco in Quintana Roo lost over 7000 km2 of its area after the creation of Bacalar Municipality, so that Mazapil now ranks twelfth.
  7. Web site: Compendio de Información Geográfica Municipal 2010: Mazapil, Zacatecas . . 16 January 2018.
  8. Brailovsky Signoret . David . Hernandez . Hector M. . 2010 . Mazapil, Zacatecas: Diversity and Conservation of Cacti in a Poorly-Known Arid Region in Northern Mexico . 10.2985/015.082.0502 . Cactus and Succulent Journal . 82 . 5 . 197–202 .
  9. Web site: Mazapil . es . Enciclopedia de los Municipios y Delegaciones de México . . 16 January 2018.
  10. Web site: Mazapil . Government of Mazapil . 16 January 2018.
  11. Book: 1996 . Estado de Zacatecas. División Territorial de 1810 a 1995. . 59 . Spanish . Mexico . . 970-13-1519-7.
  12. Beech . Martin . 2002 . The Mazapil meteorite: from paradigm to periphery . 10.1111/j.1945-5100.2002.tb00845.x . Meteoritics & Planetary Science . 37 . 5 . 649–660 . free .
  13. Web site: Resumen municipal: Municipio de Mazapil . es . Catálogo de Localidades . . 16 January 2018.
  14. Book: Cuadro 16.1: Volumen de la producción de minerales seleccionados por municipio 2013, 2014 y 2015 . Anuario estadístico y geográfico de Zacatecas 2016 . Spanish . Mexico . INEGI . 978-607-739-849-3.
  15. Web site: Peñasquito . . 17 January 2018.
  16. News: Jamasmie . Cecilia . Goldcorp begins controlled shutdown of Mexico mine, its largest operation . MINING.com . 13 October 2016 . 17 January 2018.
  17. Web site: Peñasquito, Mexico . MICLA . 16 January 2018.
  18. News: Campesinos se manifiestan contra minera canadiense en Mazapil, Zacatecas . es . Ecoosfera . 28 September 2016 . 17 January 2018.
  19. 1982 . A Technology Assessment of the Commercialization of Mexican Guayule: Final Report . Office of Arid Lands Studies, University of Arizona; Centro de Investigacion en Quimica Aplicada . 155–156 . 10150/304616 . 16 January 2018.