VERACRUZ INFORMATION
The city of Veracruz is a major port city and municipality on the Gulf of Mexico in the Mexican state of Veracruz. The metropolitan area is Mexico's largest on the Gulf coast and an important east coast port. It is located 105 km (65 mi) along Federal Highway 140 from the state capital Xalapa, and is the state's most populous city, with a population of 444,438 in the city and 512,310 in the municipality, according to the 2005 census. The municipality has an area of 241 km2 (93 sq mi) and includes such outlying communities as Valente Díaz and Las Amapolas. The metropolitan area, which includes the municipalities of Boca del Río and Alvarado, had a total population of 702,394, compared to metro Tampico's total of 603,196.
It is often referred to as Puerto de Veracruz to distinguish it from the state. The people of Veracruz are known as Jarochos. It is also referred as the Four Times Heroic City after resisting various invasions, two from France (the Pastry War and the French intervention in Mexico) and two from the USA (the Siege of Veracruz and the 1914 US occupation).
The modern-day states of Veracruz and Tabasco were once occupied by the Olmec civilization, from around 1400 BCE to about 400 BCE. But also, recent Archaeological evidence (found in Veracruz in 2002 and 2006) suggests that the Olmec may have been the first civilization in the Western Hemisphere to develop a writing system. The discovery came when the famous Cascajal Block (a writing tablet-sized serpentine slab, which depicts 62 glyphs) was discovered by road builders in the late 1990s in a pile of debris in the village of Lomas de Tacamichapa in the Veracruz lowlands in the ancient Olmec heartland.
As of the census of 2000, there were 500,000 people living in Veracruz City.
The racial makeup of the city was 60% Mestizo, 15% Black/Afro-Mexican, 15% Indian, 9% Mixed, the remaining 1% is composed by many immigrants, especially Middle-Easterns, Italians and french.
The city is served by General Heriberto Jara International Airport, located outskirts of the city.
Veracruz borders the states of Tamaulipas to the north, Oaxaca and Chiapas to the south, Tabasco to the southeast, Puebla, Hidalgo, and San Luis Potosí to the west, and the Gulf of Mexico to the east. On the coastal plains and throughout most of the state, the climate is hot and humid. On the foothills of the mountains, the climate is cool and humid. The climate only becomes cold in the mountain regions, where it also rains copiously. |
