Túxpam de Rodríguez Cano

Túxpam de Rodríguez Cano, known to everyone as Tuxpan, is the main city and port of northern Veracruz and the seat of the municipality of the same name. It lies in the Huasteca on the left bank of the Tuxpan River, 11 km upstream from the Gulf, only 10 m above sea level. The city had 89,557 people in 2020 and the municipality 154,600. Both spellings, Tuxpan and Túxpam, are in use; the name comes from the Nahuatl Tochpan, "place of rabbits".

The roots are Huastec. The first settlement was Tabuco, a small ceremonial centre downstream toward the river mouth. The Mexica took the area in the second half of the 15th century and made Tochpan the head of a tribute province that also covered Papantla; every twenty days it held a market that drew traders from the Valley of Mexico and Tulancingo. Bernal Díaz del Castillo wrote the first description of the place and Hernán Cortés conquered the area in 1522. Repeated floods pushed the town from the right bank to the left, where it stands today. It became a villa in 1830, a city in 1881 and briefly the state capital in 1914, and since 1955 it has carried the name of Enrique Rodríguez Cano, a politician born here.

Tuxpan's best-known moment came in the first minutes of 25 November 1956, when the yacht Granma left Santiago de la Peña, across the river from the city, carrying Fidel and Raúl Castro, Che Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos and some eighty other fighters to start the Cuban Revolution. The Museo de la Amistad México-Cuba in Santiago de la Peña keeps photographs, writings and objects from that story.

Today Tuxpan is the closest port to Mexico City. It handles mostly grain such as soybeans and maize, has Pemex installations and is home to the Mexican Navy's Gulf fleet; a new terminal opened in 2017 with capacity for hundreds of thousands of containers and vehicles a year. Fishing, cattle and citrus fill out the economy. For visitors, life centres on the old town: the cathedral of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, Parque Reforma with its fountains, the Niños Héroes monument by the river and the Enrique Rodríguez Cano market, where the upper floor serves regional cooking. East of town the mangrove-lined Tampamachoco lagoon separates the city from the Gulf, and beyond it long beaches run along the barrier island, with oil tankers anchored offshore. Local dishes include bocoles, machuco made from green plantain, tamales, squash with shrimp and plenty of seafood, and the music is huapango and son huasteco.