Nanchital de Lázaro Cárdenas del Río

Nanchital is a town in southern Veracruz, seat of the municipality of Nanchital de Lázaro Cárdenas del Río and one of the three municipalities of the Coatzacoalcos metropolitan area, which lies about 12 km away. The municipality is small, around 30 km², humid and rainy all year (2,400 to 2,600 mm of rain and average temperatures of 25 to 27 °C), and nearly everyone lives in the town itself, which had 25,289 people in 2010.

The name means "place where nance trees abound", after the yellow-fruited tree common in the region. According to Mexico's federal tourism promotion, Ambrosio Solorza, then municipal president of Coatzacoalcos, gave the name in 1884 to the ranch that grew into the town. In 1904 the British firm S. Pearson began drilling wells nearby such as San Cristóbal, Potrerillos and Filisola, and oil and Pemex have carried the local economy ever since, alongside some maize, beans and rice. Nanchital became a congregación of Ixhuatlán municipality in 1938, the seat of that municipality in 1967, a villa in 1980 and a city in 1984; on 26 November 1988 it became a municipality in its own right, named after Lázaro Cárdenas, the president who nationalised the oil industry.

Public life centres on Benito Juárez park, with music and dancing, and on the Plaza de la Juventud and its pier, where families gather in the evening. Several downtown alleys have been restored and painted in bright colours, and La Playita on the riverbank is the spot for a meal and the sunset. The town runs callejoneadas (street parades with music) and kayak outings, and every December it celebrates its patron, San Nicolás de Bari.