Rosario

Rosario lies in southern Sinaloa, between the sierra and the Gulf of California coast, bordering Mazatlán and Concordia to the north, the state of Durango and Escuinapa to the south and southeast, and the state of Nayarit to the east.

Gold and silver mining defined the municipality's economic history for nearly three centuries; today agriculture and tourism, centered on its Pueblo Mágico seat, are significant activities.

Before Spanish contact, the territory was part of the area inhabited by the Totorame, whose principal lordship, Chiametlán —today the town of Chametla, within the municipality— was, per academic ethnohistorical sources, the first community in the region colonized by the Spanish.

The mining settlement of El Rosario, the municipality's seat, has its founding tradition in the discovery of a silver vein in 1655; for close to 290 years it sustained intense gold and silver mining activity.

The municipality was constituted as a free municipality as part of Sinaloa's 1915-1917 municipal reform; an exact decree date for its individual creation has not been independently verified.

The municipality borders Mazatlán and Concordia to the north, the state of Durango and the municipality of Escuinapa to the south and southeast, the state of Nayarit to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west.