Guasave

Guasave occupies a broad alluvial plain in northwestern Sinaloa and is the flattest of the state’s municipalities. Its economy rests on irrigated agriculture in the Río Sinaloa district — grains, oilseeds and vegetables — and, on the coast, on inshore fishing and aquaculture run through cooperatives.

The seat is the city of Guasave, the main urban and service centre. The coast takes in the Navachiste barrier and the beach of Las Glorias. In 2021 the state congress approved separating part of the municipal territory to form the new municipality of Juan José Ríos, which took office in 2024.

The land around Guasave was long held by Cahíta-speaking peoples — among them the Guasave and Mayo — whose rain-fed farming along the Río Sinaloa drew the notice of the first Spanish expeditions in the sixteenth century.

Through the colonial period the area was tied to the mission system and the trade routes of the northwest. The present municipality took shape in independent Mexico, and the city of Guasave grew during the twentieth century with the irrigation of the valley. In 2021 the state congress approved the creation of the municipality of Juan José Ríos from territory of Guasave, Ahome, El Fuerte and Sinaloa; its municipal government took office in 2024.

The municipality is a plain of nearly level soils; its only high ground is a scattering of coastal hills and islands around the bays of Navachiste and San Ignacio. The Río Sinaloa crosses it from northeast to southwest and is regulated upstream by the Gustavo Díaz Ordaz (Bacurato) dam.

The coast, on the Gulf of California, mixes estuaries, mangroves and the sand barrier of Las Glorias. The climate is hot and dry, with rainfall concentrated in summer.