Tampico

Tampico (tämpē`kō), city (1990 pop. 272,690), Tamaulipas state, E Mexico, on the Pánuco River, a few miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico. Rivaling Veracruz as Mexico's most important seaport, Tampico is used primarily for Mexico's petroleum industry. It possesses excellent modern facilities and also serves as an export center for Tamaulipas state's other goods, including cattle, hides, sugar, and additional agricultural products. In pre-Columbian times, Tampico was the site of the Huastec kingdom, which later became a tributary of the Aztec Empire. Spanish settlement dates back to the founding of a Franciscan mission there in the 1530s. Tampico was occupied by a U.S. force during the Mexican War and by French troops in 1862, during the French intervention. With the discovery of oil (c.1900) by English and American geologists, rapid development of petroleum industries began; before Mexico expropriated foreign-owned property, about one third of Tampico's landowners were Americans. The city boomed while much of the rest of Mexico was in revolutionary turmoil. Tampico is the seat of a state university and an active cultural center.

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Tampico

Port and city (pop., 2000: 295,442), southeastern Tamaulipas state, northeastern Mexico. It lies on the Pánuco River and is almost surrounded by swampland and lagoons. It grew around a Franciscan monastery founded c. 1532. Destroyed by pirates in 1683, it was not resettled until 1823. It was occupied briefly by U.S. troops (1846) during the Mexican War and by the French in 1862. Until 1901 it was a second-rate port with a reputation for unsanitary conditions. It grew with the rapid exploitation of surrounding petroleum resources to become the most modern port in Mexico and one of the country's leading seaports. It is also a seaside resort.