*** Welcome to piglix ***

Bolsón de Mapimí


The Bolsón de Mapimí is an endorheic or internal drainage basin in which no rivers or streams drain to the sea but rather toward the center of the basin often terminating in swamps and ephemeral lakes. It is located in the center-north of the Mexican Plateau. The Basin is shared by the states of Durango, Coahuila, Chihuahua, and Zacatecas. It takes its name from Mapimí, a town in Durango.

The largest city in the basin is Torreón. Parts of the basin host much industrial and agricultural activity. However, most of the region is sparsely populated.

The Bolsón de Mapimí is a large area measuring more than 200 miles (320 km) north to south and the same distance east to west, lying between 25 and 29 degrees north latitude. The total area is about 50,000 square miles (129,000 km2) and the average elevation is 3,000 feet (900 meters). The Greater Bolsón de Mapimí covers adjacent areas extending north to the Rio Grande, which are similar in terrain and climate but have streams which have outlets to the Gulf of Mexico.

The Bolsón is bounded on the west by the Sierra Madre Occidental and the Conchos River basin, by the basin of the Rio Grande to the north, and by the mountain ranges of the Sierra del Carmen and Sierra Madre Oriental to the east. At its southern edge, near the state line of Zacatecas, the Bolson shades into another endorheic basin called Llanos El Salado. Major rivers flowing northward into the basin are the Nazas River and its tributaries, which originate in the Sierra Madre Occidental in Durango and the Aguanaval River, which flows north from central Zacatecas. The two rivers terminate in the southern part of the Bolsón in an area called the Comarca Lagunera centered on the city of Torreón, Coahuila which formerly contained large, shallow lakes, now usually dry.


...
Wikipedia

...