The Suchiate River ( es, Río Suchiate, ) is a river that marks the southwesternmost part of the border between

Mexico Mexico ( Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guate ...

(state of

Chiapas Chiapas (; Tzotzil and Tzeltal: ''Chyapas'' ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas), is one of the states that make up the 32 federal entities of Mexico. It comprises 124 municipalities ...

) and Guatemala (department of San Marcos). From its sources on the southern slopes of the

Tacaná volcano Tacaná is a town and municipality in the Guatemalan department of San Marcos. History In 1690, Tejutla had a large area and included the modern municipalities of Comitancillo, Ixchiguán, Concepción Tutuapa, Sipacapa, Sibinal, Tajumulc ...

in the Sierra Madre range of Guatemala, the river flows in a south-southwesterly direction to the border with Mexico at

Unión Juárez Unión may refer to: Places * Unión, Paraguay * Unión Municipality, Falcón, Venezuela * Unión, Montevideo, Uruguay * Unión Cantinil, Huehuetenango, Guatemala * Unión, San Luis, Argentina * Unión Department, Córdoba Province, Argentina * Uni ...

(), past the border towns Talismán and El Carmen, and then

Ciudad Tecún Umán Ayutla () is a municipality in the San Marcos Department of Guatemala. It is situated along the Suchiate River natural border with Mexico in the southern part of the department. The municipality center is Ciudad Tecún Umán. There is a combined ...

and Ciudad Hidalgo (Chiapas) further downstream, where the Puente Rodolfo Robles and a

railway bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...

cross the river, and on to the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...

. Its name comes from the

Nahuatl Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have small ...

name ''Xochiatl'' meaning "flower-water". The pre-Columbian archaeological site of

Izapa Izapa is a very large pre-Columbian archaeological site located in the Mexican state of Chiapas; it is best known for its occupation during the Late Formative period. The site is situated on the Izapa River, a tributary of the Suchiate River, ...

lies along the river.

References

* *The Prentice Hall American World Atlas, 1984. *Rand McNally, The New International Atlas, 1993.

References

See also