TABASCO, DIOCESE of. - City on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico and diocese of the State of T. in the Republic of Mexico.
It has an area of 30,680 sq. km., with a population of 385,086 inhabitants, of whom 322,627 are Catholics. The diocese has 8 parishes, served by 10 diocesan priests and 1 religious; it has a seminary, 4 male and 4 female religious communities (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 413). The bishop resides in S. Juan Batista, founded in 1598 under the name of « Villa Filippo II », known as « Villa Hermosa » until 1826, the year in which it assumed its present designation.
The diocese was created on 25 May 1880 by Pope Leone XIII, by the dismemberment of the dioceses of Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Yucatán. It was a suffragan of the archdiocese of Messico until 1891; from 1891 to 1906 it became a suffragan of Oaxaca, and finally, from 1906, of the diocese of Yucatán.