Poza Rica

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Poza Rica (formally: Poza Rica de Hidalgo) is a city and its surrounding municipality in the Mexican state of Veracruz. Its name means "rich pool", because it was a place known by its abundance of fish; the city gradually grown out of oil well exploration and drilling activities.

It shares borders with Papantla, Tuxpan, and Gutiérrez Zamora, and stands on Federal Highway 180. The archaeological zone of El Tajín is located approximately 15km from Poza Rica. The area is intensely tropical, with two popular beaches within one hour, Tuxpan, and Tecolutla, and one within 40 minutes, Cazones. Mexico city is about 220 km from Poza Rica. Unlike most of Mexican cities, it has not old buildings because it's a new city founded officially in Novembre 20th 1951. Since that, it has contemporary architecture with well lined and designed streets with a modern look. Whilst the petroleum industry features heavily amongst the industrial landscape in Poza Rica, the city also has a wide variety of other industries. As one of the largest and most populous cities in Veracruz, Poza Rica is an important industrial and commercial center, and central hub for several road transportation lines. The City has seen recently a lot of growth, with several commercial center opening around the city. The city counts with around 300,000 habitants, but informal counting it sets about 500,000 habitants. MAIN ATTRACTIONS Poza Rica is geographically among of the norther beaches of Veracruz, such as Tecolutla, Tuxpan, Cazones and Playa Esmeralda and because of its hotel and metropolitan infraestrcuture is convenient for staying in a comfortable city. "El Tajin", worldwide famous arhaeological zone is only to 15 km away. It has a downtown which provides a good shopping experience. It has a local famous height called "El cerro del abuelo" where it's possible to see the whole city and its "quemadores", big petroleum burners which were used to ligth the city in the early years. There are few of them in the presente time. Every year has a holiday called "Desfile del 18 de marzo" (March 18th Parade) which commemorates the oil Mexican expropriation and has two beautiful parades, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. It's a city with a predominant young population.

Mexico's only nuclear power plant (Laguna Verde) is about 300km away, near the state's capital city of Xalapa.