Mazatlan - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

MAZATLAN, a city and port of the state of Sinaloa, Mexico, 120 m. (direct) W.S.W. of the city of Durango, in lat. 23° 12' N., long. 106° 24' W. Pop. (1895), 15,852; (1900), 17,852. It is the Pacific coast terminus of the International railway which crosses northern Mexico from Ciudad Porfirio Diaz, and a port of call for the principal steamship lines on this coast. The harbour is spacious, but the entrance is obstructed by a bar. The city is built on a small peninsula. Its public buildings include a fine town-hall, chamber of commerce, a custom-house and two hospitals, besides which there is a nautical school and a meteorological station, one of the first established in Mexico. The harbour is provided with a sea-wall at Olas Altas. A government wireless telegraph service is maintained between Mazatlan and La Paz, Lower California. Among the manufactures are saw-mills, foundries, cotton factories and ropeworks, and the exports are chiefly hides, ixtle, dried and salted fish, gold, silver and copper (bars and ores), fruit, rubber, tortoise-shell, and gums and resins.