Rivaling Veracruz as Mexico’s most important seaport, Tampico is used primarily for Mexico’s petroleum industry and fishing. It possesses excellent modern facilities and also serves as an export center for Tamaulipas’s other goods, including cattle, hides, sugar, and additional agricultural products.

In pre-Columbian times, the Tampico area was the site of the Huastec kingdom, which later became a tributary of the Aztec Empire. Spanish settlement dates back to the founding of a Franciscan mission there in the 1530s. Tampico was occupied by a U.S. force during the Mexican War and by French troops in 1862, during the French intervention.

With the discovery of oil (circa 1900) by Engineer and American geologists, rapid development of petroleum industries began; before Mexico expropriated foreign-owned property, about 13 percent of Tampico’s landowners were Americans. The city boomed while much of the rest of Mexico was in revolutionary turmoil.

Tampico is the seat of a state university and an active cultural center.