Geography
Tabasco is small — 24,731 km², the ninth-smallest state — and almost entirely flat. Apart from a strip of low hills on the Chiapas border, where the ground reaches about 1,000 m in the Sierra de Huimanguillo and around Tacotalpa, the state lies below 30 m. It is the wettest state in Mexico: most of it receives more than 2,000 mm of rain a year and the southern foothills more than 4,000 mm, with a rainy season that runs from June to well into January rather than ending in September as it does elsewhere.
The state is built by two rivers. The Grijalva rises in Chiapas and Guatemala and passes Villahermosa; the Usumacinta, the largest river in Mexico by volume, comes down from the Guatemalan highlands along the border. They meet at Tres Brazos and reach the Gulf together at Frontera, in the municipality of Centla, having formed a delta of levees, oxbows and permanently flooded swamp. The Pantanos de Centla Biosphere Reserve protects about 302,700 ha of it, the largest wetland in North America and a Ramsar site. Between a quarter and a third of all the fresh surface water in Mexico passes through this one delta, which is why floods here are a recurring national event rather than a local one.
The coast is about 190 km of low barrier beach, lagoons and river mouths — Mecoacán, Carmen and Machona among them — with no cliffs and no natural deep-water harbour. Oil changed the state after 1970: onshore fields in the Chontalpa and the giant offshore deposits in the neighbouring Bay of Campeche made Tabasco a service base, and the Olmeca refinery at Dos Bocas, near Paraíso, was built to process heavy crude on the same coast. Cacao, bananas and cattle occupy the rest of the land; Tabasco and Chiapas together grow nearly all of Mexico's cocoa.
The state was Olmec ground first. La Venta, in Huimanguillo municipality, was the leading Olmec centre from about 900 to 400 BC and produced four of the colossal basalt heads now standing in the open-air museum in Villahermosa, the stone hauled more than 100 km from the Tuxtlas volcanoes in Veracruz. Comalcalco, built between about AD 200 and 900, marks the western limit of the Maya world and was raised in fired brick because there is no building stone in the delta.
Main cities
| Municipality | Population (2020) | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Villahermosa (Centro) | 353,577 | Capital; La Venta park museum, VSA airport |
| Cárdenas | 254,443 | Chontalpa farming and oil district |
| Comalcalco | 201,072 | Cacao country; fired-brick Maya site |
| Huimanguillo | 189,044 | Largest municipality; La Venta is here |
| Macuspana | 158,553 | Gas fields and the Agua Blanca waterfalls |
| Cunduacán | 133,449 | West of the capital, on Highway 180 |
| Centla (Frontera) | 102,110 | River mouth and the Centla wetlands |
| Paraíso | 92,000 | Dos Bocas port and refinery |
| Tenosique | 62,000 | On the Usumacinta near the Guatemalan border |
Figures are 2020 municipal populations from the INEGI census, rounded for the smaller places. Tabasco has only 17 municipalities, among the fewest of any state, so each covers a wide area.
Neighbouring states
Three states and one country border Tabasco. Veracruz lies to the west, sharing the Coatzacoalcos lowlands. Chiapas rises to the south, and every major river in Tabasco comes from it. Campeche adjoins the east, along the Laguna de Términos and the road to Ciudad del Carmen. In the far south-east the state meets Guatemala for a short stretch near Tenosique, on the Usumacinta.
Getting there
Carlos Rovirosa Pérez International (VSA), 13 km east of Villahermosa, is the only airport with scheduled service, flying to Mexico City, Monterrey, Guadalajara, Cancún, Mérida and Houston. It is the usual arrival point for Palenque, 150 km away in Chiapas.
Federal Highway 180 crosses the state from Coatzacoalcos in the west through Villahermosa and on east towards Ciudad del Carmen and Campeche. Highway 186 runs south-east from Villahermosa through Escárcega to Chetumal, and Highway 195 climbs to Tuxtla Gutiérrez in about 3 hours. Mexico City to Villahermosa is about 860 km, roughly 10 hours by way of Puebla and Veracruz. The Tren Maya crosses the south-east of the state, with a station at Boca del Cerro near Tenosique on the Palenque–Escárcega section. See the road map and the rivers map.
Questions about Tabasco
Where is Tabasco on the map of Mexico?
On the southern shore of the Gulf of Mexico, between Veracruz and Campeche, at the base of the Yucatán Peninsula. Villahermosa is about 860 km from Mexico City by road.
Why is Tabasco the wettest state in Mexico?
Warm Gulf air is pushed up against the northern edge of the Chiapas highlands, so rain falls almost year-round. Most of the state gets more than 2,000 mm a year and the southern foothills exceed 4,000 mm; roughly a third of Mexico's surface water drains through Tabasco.
Is Tabasco sauce from Tabasco?
No. The sauce is made in Louisiana and was named after the state, probably because the pepper variety was thought to have come from there. The state's own signature crop is cacao, grown around Comalcalco.
What is there to see in Tabasco?
The Olmec colossal heads from La Venta, displayed outdoors at Parque-Museo La Venta in Villahermosa; Comalcalco, the only large Maya city built of fired brick; and the Pantanos de Centla wetlands where the Grijalva and Usumacinta meet.
Does Tabasco flood?
Yes, regularly. The state is almost entirely below 30 m and sits at the outlet of two very large rivers; the flood of 2007 covered most of the lowlands and much of Villahermosa, and serious flooding recurred in 2020.