The dune fields are scattered over a wide expanse of desert to the south, southwest and southeast of Ciudad Juárez.

[7] The town is adjacent to the dramatic high dunes that lie some 52 km directly south of Ciudad Juárez just east of Mexican Federal Highway 45.

[2] The dramatic high dunes that exist close to the village of Samalayuca may be seen in the distance from Mexican Federal Highway 45.

A lesser known part of the Salamayuca dune field extends to the west from Samalayuca into the area southwest from Ciudad Juárez.

A separate community also known as El Paso del Norte was later established on the north side of the river in 1849 after the Mexican-American War on United States Territory.

The original Mexican community of El Paso del Norte south of the river changed its name to Ciudad Juárez in 1865.

The soft shifting sands made walking through the dune fields tiring and time-consuming for animals or people.

When he reached Los Médanos, he attempted to cross but found the difficulty so great that he detoured to the east to go around the dunes.

[3] At Laguna de Patos, the main branch of the Chihuahua Trail proceeded due north crossing the dune fields to reach El Paso in about 65 miles.

Recent surveys confirm that three springs exist in the area of Samalayuca[citation needed], but the saline content renders two of them unfit for drinking.

From the 1600s though the 1800s merchants, explorers, soldiers and the random tourist traveling on the Chihuahua trail found passage through the Samalayuca dunes difficult and dangerous.

Throughout this period of three centuries the Apache Indians conducted their off and on guerrilla war with the encroaching Spanish, operating out of the Sierra Madre mountains to the west.

[12] Even as late as 1882 travelers were "warned to avoid this point [Los Médanos] of all others while traveling through Chihuahua", and to take the alternative route around the dunes area, though some 60 miles longer, because "This place is attended by great danger from the attacks of the Apaches, who well know the helpless condition of animals passing and take the opportunity to attack parties.

[7] Some merchants going south from El Paso started out with carts loaded with goods, but would hire a mule train to accompany them.

[12] In 1846 an English soldier of fortune reported the track through the dunes littered with skeletons and dead bodies of oxen, mules and horses.

Flashes of lightning illuminated ghostly images of slow moving wagons, riders on horseback wrapped in blankets, and travelers on foot walking or sleeping beside the track.

Quiet prevailed except for the cries of muleteers and the thunder, The winding passage of the procession through the dunes was marked with multiple pinpoints of light from "cigarritos".

[7][11][12] During the Mexican War, Colonel Alexander William Doniphan led a force of about 1000 American soldiers south from El Paso.

Once past the dunes, Colonel Doniphan went on south, and still accompanied by the wagon train he defeated a Mexican force at the Battle of the Sacramento River, thereafter capturing Chihuahua City.

they were formed by airflow erosion of rocks that created small fragments that were then carried away by the wind, to be deposited in natural land depressions.

[2] In large dune systems, many species of plants and animals evolve and adapt to the harsh environment, and thus become unique and endemic.

Silica sand is widely used in what is called "the transforamation industry", for the making of glass, silicates, paints, glass-ceramics and ceramics.

On June 5 of 2009, the Mexican federal government created a protected area of 63,182 hectares (631.82 km2, or 156,126.12 acres) in Samalayuca dune fields.