The principal cities of Mexico, other than the capitals above mentioned, are as follows, the populations being those of 1900 except when otherwise stated: Acapulco (pop. 4932), a famous port on the Pacific coast in Guerrero, which was wrecked by the earthquake of 1909; Carmen, or Laguna de Terminos (about 6000), a thriving commercial town and port on the Gulf coast in Campeche; Celaya (2 5,5 6 5), a railway centre and manufacturing town of Guanajuato; Ciudad Guzman, or Zapotlan (about 17,500), an interesting old town of Jalisco; Cholula (about 9000), an ancient native town of Puebla, widely known for its great pyramid; Comitan (9316), the commercial centre of Chiapas; Cordoba (7974 in 1895), a picturesque Spanish town in the sierras of Vera Cruz; Cuautla (6269), the centre of a rich sugar-producing district of Morelos; Guaymas (8648), a flourishing port of Sonora on the Gulf of California; Leon (62,623), the largest city in Guanajuato and distinguished for its commercial activity, manufactures and wealth; Linares (20,690), the second city of Nuevo Leon in size and importance; Matamoros (8347), a prominent commercial centre and river port of Tamaulipas; Mazatlan (17,852), the foremost Mexican port on the Pacific coast; Orizaba (32,894), a city of Vera Cruz famous for its delightful climate and picturesque surroundings; Parral (14,748), a well-known mining centre of southern Chihuahua; San Cristobal (about 16,00o), once capital of Chiapas and rich in historical associations; Tampico (16,313), a Gulf port and railway terminus of Tamaulipas; Tehuantepec (10,386), the largest town on the Tehuantepec railway in Oaxaca; Vera Cruz (29,164), the oldest and best known Gulf port of Mexico.
PALENQUE, the modern name of a deserted city in Mexico, in the narrow valley of the Otolum, in the north part of the state of Chiapas, 80 m.
CHIAPAS, a Pacific coast state of southern Mexico on the Guatemalan frontier, bounded by the states of Tabasco on the N.
Of Tuxtla, is an interesting old town and the seat of the bishopric of Chiapas, founded in 1525 and made famous through its associations with Las Casas.
Chiapas, Mexico.
Lorillard City, Chiapas, Mexico.
Less is definitely known of the elevated regions of Chiapas, on the border of Guatemala, which are separated from the great Mexican Plateau by the low Isthmus of Tehuantepec (718 ft.
The largest rivers of Mexico are: the Rio Grande de Santiago, called the Lerma above Lake Chapala, rising in the state of Mexico and flowing westward across Guanajuato, Jalisco and Tepic to the Pacific coast, with a total length of 540 m., celebrated for its deep canyons and waterfalls; the Rio de las Balsas, or Mescala, which rises in Tlaxcala and flows south and west to the Pacific with a course of 426 m.; the Yaqui, which rises in western Chihuahua and, after breaking through the northern ranges of the Sierra Madre Occidental, flows south-westerly across Sonora to the Gulf of California, with a length of 390 m.; the Grijalva, also called the Chiapas on its upper course, which has its sources in the state of Chiapas and flows north-west and north across Tabasco to the Gulf of Mexico, with a total length of 350 m.; the Fuerte, which rises in southern Chihuahua and, after breaking through the sierras, flows south-west across Sinaloa to the Gulf of California, with a course of 340 m.; the Usumacinta, which is formed by the confluence of the Chixoy and Pasion on the east frontier of Chiapas, and flows north-west across Tabasco to the Grijalva, with a course of 330 m.; and the Panuco, which has its source in the north-west of the state of Mexico and flows north-eastward to the Gulf of Mexico.
Similar rocks occur also in Chiapas, Oaxaca, Guerrero and elsewhere; but owing to the absence of any early fossiliferous deposits, the age of these rocks is very uncertain.
The tierras calientes (hot lands) of Mexico include the two coastal zones, the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the states of Tabasco, Campeche, and part of Chiapas, the peninsula of Yucatan and a part of eastern Oaxaca.
The tierra templada, or sub-tropical zone, rises to an elevation of 5577 ft., and comprises " the greater portions of Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, San Luis Potosi, nearly half of Tamaulipas, a small part of Vera Cruz, nearly the whole of Chiapas, nearly all of Oaxaca, a large portion of Guerrero, Jalisco, Sinaloa and Sonora," together with small parts of the inland states of Puebla, Mexico, Morelos and Michoacan.
They inhabit the western Sierra Madre region from Sinaloa southward to Chiapas, the higher plateau states, which region was the centre of their empire when Cortes conquered them, and parts of Vera Cruz, Tabasco, Oaxaca, Morelos, Aguascalientes and San Luis Potosi.
Perhaps the most remarkable of the Mexican races are the Mayas, or MayaQuiche group, which inhabit the Yucatfin peninsula, Campeche and parts of Tabasco, Chiapas, and the neighbouring states of Central America (q.v.).
The " ixtle " fibres shipped from Tampico and Chiapas are all obtained from the agaves and yuccas found growing wild.
Gold is found in Chihuahua, Durango, Guanajuato, Guerrero, Jalisco, Mexico, Morelos, Oaxaca, Puebla, Sinaloa, Sonora, Vera Cruz, Zacatecas, and to a limited extent in other states; silver in every state and territory except Campeche, Chiapas, Tabasco, Tlaxcala and the Yucatan peninsula; copper in Lower California, Guanajuato, Guerrero, Jalisco, Michoacan, Sonora, Tamaulipas and some other states; mercury chiefly in Guanajuato, Guerrero, San Luis Potosi, Vera Cruz and Zacatecas; tin in Guanajuato; coal, petroleum and asphalt in 20 states, but chiefly in Coahuila, Hidalgo, Michoacan, Oaxaca, Puebla, Sonora, Tabasco, Tamaulipas and Vera Cruz; iron in Durango, Hidalgo, Oaxaca and other states; and lead in Hidalgo, Queretaro and in many of the silver-producing districts.
The Chorotega race had its centre in Nicaragua (Pacific coast) and at one time extended thence as far as Guanacaste (Costa Rica); at another time it extended as far as Honduras (actual department of Choluteca) and into eastern Salvador as far as the state of Chiapas in Mexico, where the Chorotega penetrated amongst the Mixe.
In comparing these ruins in Yucatan, Chiapas, Guatemala and Honduras, it is evident that, though they are the work of two or more nations highly distinct in language, yet these nations had a common system of pictorial or written characters.
New Spain in its widest meaning includes the audiencias or judicial districts of Manila, San Domingo and Guatemala, and the viceroy had some sort of authority over them: but in its narrower meaning it comprised the audiencia district of Mexico and the subordinate audiencia district of Guadalajara, which together extended from Chiapas and Guatemala to beyond the eastern boundary of the modern state of Texas and northwards, eventually, to Vancouver's Island.
In the course of the 18th century this came to consist of the following divisions: (1) .the kingdom of Mexico, which included the peninsula of Yucatan but not the present state of Chiapas or a part of Tabasco, these belonging to Guatemala.
There were some frontier difficulties with the United States, and with Guatemala, which revived a claim dropped since 1858 to a portion of the state of Chiapas; and there was considerable internal progress, aided by a too liberal policy of subsidies to railways and even to lines of steamships.
GUATEMALA (sometimes incorrectly written Guatimala), a name now restricted to the republic of Guatemala and to its chief city, but formerly given to a captaincy-general of Spanish America, which included the fifteen provinces of Chiapas, Suchitepeques, Escuintla, Sonsonate, San Salvador, Vera Paz and Peten, Chiquimula, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Totonicapam, Quezaltenango, Sololá, Chimaltenango and Sacatepeques, - or, in other words, the whole of Central America (except Panama) and part of Mexico.
A vast number of streams, among which are the Chixoy, the Guadalupe, and the Rio de la Pasion, unite to form the Usumacinta, whose noble current passes along the Mexican frontier, and flowing on through Chiapas and Tabasco, falls into the Bay of Campeche.
The climate is much drier than that of Chiapas, and the structures are in a better state of preservation than those of Palenque, but the rank vegetation and the decay of the wooden lintels over the doorways have broken down many of the walls.
By Chiapas, S.
By Guatemala and Chiapas, and W.
The Grijalva, also called Tabasco, the upper course of which is known as the Chiapas, has its most distant sources in western Guatemala and flows N.W.
Across Chiapas to the frontier of Oaxaca, thence N.
It forms the boundary between Guatemala and Chiapas until the frontier of Tabasco is reached, where its N.W.
The Chiapas follows a similar course.
