Alvarado

Alvarado, officially the Heroica, Ilustre y Generosa Ciudad y Puerto de Alvarado, is a fishing port and municipal seat on the Gulf coast about 64 km southeast of the city of Veracruz along Federal Highway 180. The town stands only about 10 m above sea level on a strip of land between the sea and a large lagoon system formed where the Papaloapan and Blanco rivers reach the Gulf; from north to south the lagoons are the Camaronera, Buen País, Alvarado and Tlalixcoyan. In 2004 this Sistema Lagunar de Alvarado, surrounded by mangroves, was listed as a Ramsar wetland covering some 267,000 hectares. The town had 20,797 people at the 2020 census and the municipality 57,305, and fishing and cattle ranching remain the main activities.

The first European to reach the area was Pedro de Alvarado, who arrived on 16 June 1518 as a captain in Juan de Grijalva's expedition at a native settlement the Mexica called Atlizintla, and both the town and, for a time, the Papaloapan were named after him. From 1600 it was known as San Cristóbal de Alvarado. In colonial times it was the outlet for cattle, sugar, cotton and timber from the Papaloapan basin, an anchorage for the Spanish fleets, and a target for pirates, who attacked it in 1667. Its titles tell its later history: "Ilustre" for its defence against the US Navy in 1846, city status in 1879, "Generosa" in 1944 for the help it gave neighbouring Tlacotalpan in floods, and "Heroica" in 1957. In 1936 the film Redes, scored by Silvestre Revueltas, was shot here with local fishermen as its actors, and the bridge over the Papaloapan that replaced the river ferries opened in 1963.

Today Alvarado is a lively, working town. Its main square brings together the Monument to the Heroes of Sotavento, the parish church of Nuestra Señora del Rosario and the municipal palace of 1900, and the malecón built from 1948 looks out over the lagoon and the fishing boats. Seafood is the reason many people come, especially arroz a la tumbada, and the town is also famous across Mexico for its free use of swear words, a reputation celebrated in the name of the jokey Academia Alvaradeña de la Lengua. Its carnival, first held in 1947 as the Feria de la Pesca, and the Cruces de Mayo festival, which runs through May with processions, music, regional dances and a giant arroz a la tumbada, are the big dates of the year.