Federal Highway 15 (, Fed. 15 ) is Mexico 15 International Highway or Mexico-Nogales Highway, is a primary north–south highway, and is a free part of the federal highways corridors () of Mexico. The highway begins in the north at the Mexico–United States border at the Nogales Port of Entry in Nogales, Sonora, and terminates to the south in Mexico City.
Fed. 15 from Nogales to Mazatlán runs parallel to Fed. 15D, a tolled (cuota) part of the federal highways corridors (los corredores carreteros federales); the portion of this northern stretch from the town of Eldorado southward within the Sinaloa is a limited-access highway. North of the U.S.-Mexico border, the highway continues to the north from the Port of Entry, as I-19 Business.
The highway is the southern terminus of the CANAMEX Corridor, a trade corridor that stretches from Mexico north across the United States to the Canadian province of Alberta.
Route description
One of Mexico's most important federal highways, Fed-15 covers a wide corridor of the country's west and northwest, linking Mexico City with the U.S.-Mexico border crossing at Heroica Nogales, Sonora, connecting some of the country's most important urban centers along the way, particularly Guadalajara, Toluca, Mazatlán, and Hermosillo. Much of the corridor between Guadalajara and Heroica Nogales parallels the Southern Pacific de México/Ferrocarril del Pacífico, with the railway's tracks often visible from Fed-15. Additionally, the Fed-15 corridor has historically been one of the most significant migration corridors for Mexican migrants headed towards the western and southwestern United States. Long before modern-day migration patterns, the Mexican Federal Highway 15 corridor was also the corridor many Spanish expeditions followed in their colonization and founding of settlements that would later become communities in the modern-day Mexican northwest (such as Tepic, Mazatlán, and Hermosillo) and U.S. southwest (such as Tucson and Yuma in Arizona, and Los Angeles, San Francisco, and other cities in present-day California). The famous Francisco Vasquez de Coronado Expedition of 1540–1542, for example, followed a trajectory closely corresponding to Fed-15's modern-day alignment through Nayarit, Sinaloa, and Sonora.
In Heroica Nogales, Fed-15 commences just south of the Nogales Grand Avenue Port of Entry and travels on Avenida López Mateos before becoming Avenida Alvaro Obregón, the city's main thoroughfare. After traversing the rest of Nogales, Fed-15 exits the city near an interchange with a spur of Fed-15D, continuing southwards as a four-lane highway. At Ímuris the highway intersects with Mexico Federal Highway 2 (providing a vital link across the Sierra Madre Occidental between Sonora and Chihuahua). The two highways merge until Santa Ana where Fed-2 (whose western corridor through Sonora serves as a critical link between the Baja California Peninsula and mainland Mexico) separates, heading westward towards its terminus in Tijuana.
Traffic on Fed-15 south of Santa Ana increases as the highway approaches the Sonoran state capital of Hermosillo. In addition to the Fed-15D tollway, the main highway intersections Mexican Federal Highway 16, the only other paved highway connecting Sonora to Chihuahua across the Sierra Madre Occidental. South of Hermosillo, Fed-15 continues towards Ciudad Obregón by way of the historic port city of Guaymas. Views of the Sea of Cortez accompany motorists for this stretch of roadway until Fed-15 turns inland towards Ciudad Obregón crossing the Rio Yaqui. This area is defined by in great part by its agricultural fields and the increasing flatness of the Valle del Yaqui. In southern Sonora, Fed-15 crosses various indigenous Yaqui communities, including Vitam, as well as the Rio Mayo at Navojoa. Fed-15 leaves Sonora through rural Estación Don (northbound motorists traveling on Fed-15 must stop for agricultural inspection there).
