Bolsón de Mapimí

[1] The Greater Bolsón de Mapimí covers adjacent areas extending north to the Rio Grande, which are similar in terrain and climate but have streams which have outlets to the Gulf of Mexico.

At its southern edge, near the state line of Zacatecas, the Bolson shades into another endorheic basin called Llanos El Salado.

The two rivers terminate in the southern part of the Bolsón in an area called the Comarca Lagunera, centered on the city of Torreón, Coahuila, which formerly contained large, shallow lakes, now usually dry.

[3] The largest conurbation in the basin is the Comarca Lagunera, with nearly 1.5 million inhabitants, roughly half of whom live in the city of Torreón.

Spanish penetration into the Bolson began in the 1590s with Jesuit missionaries, slave traders, and Tlaxcalan Indians whom the Spanish persuaded by grants of land and freedom from taxes to move north to aid in assimilating the Indians and resolving the long-running Chichimeca War.

In the 1840s and 1850s the Bolsón became a base for Comanches from Texas who met at well-watered locations, consolidated their forces, often numbering hundreds of warriors, and struck off in every direction on destructive raids of mines and ranches.

[6] (See Comanche-Mexico War) From the 1840s to the 1860s much of the Bolsón was a ranch owned by the Sánchez Navarro family, possibly the largest land-owners in the Americas.