Communications and Transportation
The most important transportation hub in the state is the port of Manzanillo, handling 91.3% of the shipping of the state and the immediate region. It also operates as an overflow port for the commercial and industrial zones of western Mexico, the Bajío area and the center of Mexico, but handles overflow from as far as Los Angeles. Most of the merchandise that passes through here is part of the trade between Mexico and Asia. The port infrastructure consists of two types of installations. One is artificial, located in the interior port of San Pedrito and the other located in the bay proper. The artificial structure is a tall dock with a length of 450 meters and 225 meters wide for a surface of 10,125m2. The Manzanillo port has a dock for cruise ships which is visited by about 58 ships per year on average. Nearby there are two large private marinas, one in Las Hadas and the other at Isla Navidad. The port area is not fully developed with over 130 hectares in reserve for expansion.
The two main airports are the Playa de Oro International Airport in Manzanillo and the Lic. Miguel de la Madrid Airport in Colima. Playa de Oro has flights to and from destinations in Mexico, the United States and Canada. The Miguel de la Madrid airport was opened in 1987, twenty two km outside the capital. It extends over 386 hectares with runways that cover 16,200m2. The longest runway is 2.3 km long. It has one terminal. Most of the Colima airport flights go to Mexico City, with about 100,000 passengers going through the terminal in 2009. There are eight AM radio stations operating in the state and five FM stations. Most are in Colima and Manzanillo. There is no local television station with programming coming from Mexico City and through cable. Telephone service covers the entire state but rural areas still use analog. There are still some telegraph centers. The state has fourteen newspapers mostly in the city of Colima and Manzanillo.
The state has 1,424.5 km of roadway with 686.9 km paved with asphalt and the rest stone or dirt road. The main highway out of the state connects the city of Colima and Guadalajara. The second most important connects Manzanillo with Guadalajara. This roadway has broken Mexican records in the dimensions of its bridges. There are 191.5 km of railway with fifteen active stations.
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