Bahía de Topolobampo

The Bahía de Topolobampo is one of three sheltered bays — along with Ohuira and Santa María — that form a lagoon system connected to the Gulf of California through the barriers of Isla Santa María and Punta Copas. Its wharves handle petroleum products, general cargo, mineral bulk and agricultural bulk — chiefly export maize — along with the passenger and vehicle ferry that links it with La Paz, in Baja California Sur.

It is the western end of the Chihuahua–Pacific Railway, whose freight reaches the port; the passenger station of the El Chepe tourist train, however, is in Los Mochis, not in Topolobampo.

In 1881 the American engineer Albert K. Owen obtained a railway concession from the Mexican government to link the interior of the country with a port at Topolobampo, and he promoted a utopian, socialist-inspired colony there; neither that first railway project nor the colony prospered at the time. The railway was taken up again later under other companies, and the full Chihuahua–Pacific line was inaugurated in 1961; the deep-water port developed through the twentieth century as the outlet for the farm production of northern Sinaloa.

The Ohuira, Topolobampo and Santa María bay system together covers an area of roughly 225 km², of which the Bahía de Topolobampo itself takes up about 6,000 hectares.