CAMPECHE, BAY OF

also called Gulf, or Sound, Of Campeche, Spanish Baha, or Golfo, or Sondo, De Campeche, bay, southern Mexico, bounded east by the Yucatn Peninsula, south by the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and west by southern Veracruz. An inlet of the Gulf of Mexico, the bay, which covers an area of about 6,000 square miles (15,540 square km), cannot be entered by vessels drawing more than 9 feet (3 m). Rivers flowing into the bay include the Papalopan, Coatzacoalcos, Grijalva, Usumacinta, and Candelaria. Trminos Lagoon and other lagoons and swamps dot the low-lying shores of the bay. Highways connect the major port cities of Veracruz, Coatzacoalcos, Ciudad del Carmen, and Campeche. Major offshore oil fields were developed in the bay during the 1970s, and it became the highest oil-producing region in Mexico in the early 1980s. International attention was drawn to the area in mid-1979, when the Ixtoc 1 well blew out and released an estimated 3,000,000 barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, some of which washed up onto beachfronts in Texas, 600 miles (965 km) distant, before the well was finally capped early the next year. The Mexican government spent an estimated $132,000,000 to bring the spill under control. An oil pipeline connects the region to Coatzacoalcos on the coast near the city of Minatitln, where there are pipeline connections and a tanker terminal.