Gran Acuario Mazatlán

The Gran Acuario Mazatlán, full name Gran Acuario Mazatlán Mar de Cortés, is a large public aquarium in Parque Central, the city park in the Tellería neighborhood of Mazatlán, a short way inland from the malecón. It opened at the end of May 2023, replacing the old Acuario Mazatlán, which had opened on September 13, 1980, and it has been billed since then as the largest aquarium in Latin America. Its theme is the Gulf of California, the Mar de Cortés: almost all of the animals come from that sea and its coasts, and the aquarium counts more than 250 species and around 30 habitats.

The building was designed by the Mexican architect Tatiana Bilbao. It is a heavy, brutalist mass of concrete, built around the idea that this land was once under the sea, so the walls read like a worn ruin: water runs down some of them, plants grow in the inner courtyards, round skylights drop light into the galleries, and a natural lagoon surrounds part of the complex. When it opened, the first stage had 19 exhibition halls on about 26,000 m², with nearly five million liters of saltwater; one of the centerpieces is the oceanic tank, seen through an acrylic window about 13 m wide and 7 m high, where sharks and rays swim past.

The visit is organized in three zones. Costa covers the shore: the intertidal zone, a bay of rays and a mangrove. Tierra has capybaras, Humboldt penguins and birds, with an aviary and botanical patios. Mar holds the ocean window, an underwater tunnel and a coral city. Many of the sea lions and parrots here were rescued from illegal captivity. The aquarium works with the Centro de Investigaciones Oceánicas del Mar de Cortés (CIOMC) and with UNAM's Instituto de Ciencias del Mar y Limnología, and on top of the general ticket it sells extra experiences such as snorkeling with sharks, shark feeding and a capybara encounter, which need booking ahead. The aquarium is open every day of the year except a handful, and it is an easy plan in Mazatlán with children or on a hot or rainy afternoon.