Durango

The Valley of Guadiana was a crossroads between the cultures of the north and of Mesoamerica long before the Spanish came; the Tepehuanos and Zacatecos lived here in the centuries before conquest. Francisco de Ibarra founded the Villa de Durango on 8 July 1563, naming it after his home town in the Basque province of Biscay, and made it the capital of Nueva Vizcaya, a province covering most of today's Durango and Chihuahua. The site was chosen for the Cerro del Mercado, thought to hold silver but in fact an important deposit of iron, and for the Franciscan mission at Analco nearby.

Durango became a city in 1630; Jesuits founded the Colegio de Guadiana, the main school of colonial northern Mexico. Hard times in the 17th century moved the provincial capital to Parral, but the city revived after 1680 and became capital again in 1738. Mining in the Sierra Madre made the 18th century the city's period of greatest influence. In 1826 it was renamed Victoria de Durango after Guadalupe Victoria, Mexico's first president, a native of the state.

The Revolution brought fighting, the burning of businesses in 1913 and decades of economic depression. From the 1950s Hollywood discovered the landscapes outside town, and more than 120 films, many of them westerns, have been shot here. In 2010 the historic centre became part of the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro World Heritage Site, and in 2013 the city celebrated its 450th anniversary.

Durango's centre holds the largest concentration of historic monuments in northern Mexico, and the city is proud of its baroque and French-style buildings, with stonework on churches and a theatre by the local master Benigno Montoya. Music has its own festivals: one named after the composer and pianist Ricardo Castro, a native of the city, and another after the Revueltas family, known for their contributions to the city's culture, held at the Victoria Theatre.

Film is part of local identity. John Wayne made seven films here and bought a ranch, and stars from Clark Gable to Salma Hayek have worked in the deserts and haciendas around the city. The old railway station has been restored, the city museum displays posters and equipment, and old western-town sets still stand outside the city.

Religious life is strong. The city's patron, Saint George, chosen by a bishop to protect the people from scorpion stings, is honoured each April, and a Passion Play marks Holy Week. The national fair each July, around the founding anniversary, brings parades of floats and horsemen, concerts and livestock shows. The football team is the Alacranes de Durango, the Scorpions, and the Leñadores, the Lumberjacks, play basketball.

The 2020 census counted about 616,000 people in the city and about 689,000 in the municipality, which takes in hundreds of smaller communities, forests in the western mountains and farming valleys in the east.

Durango is the capital and economic centre of a state that depends largely on agriculture and livestock and has high levels of poverty. Locally, the economy revolves around forestry and foreign-owned factories, and there have been efforts to develop tourism. Film work still comes to the area, though far less than in its heyday. Most of the city's water comes from underground aquifers, which are affected by deforestation.

The city grew fast from the 1960s with migration from the countryside, spreading over new housing estates and ring roads, while the old centre has been restored and pedestrianised. Felipe Pescador Boulevard, lined with malls and shopping centres, is one of the busiest roads in the city. The main market, the Mercado de Abastos Francisco Villa in the south-central part of the city, is its main supplier of wholesale produce, dairy and meat.

Durango's cooking was shaped by cold winters and, before refrigeration, the need to preserve food: canned fruit, jams, dried meat and dried chillies are part of the tradition, and cheese is made in several small towns nearby. The best-known dish is caldillo durangueño, a stew first made with venison and green poblano chillies and now with beef. Asado rojo is pork in a red chilli sauce, and barbacoa and meat in a mole sauce, which tends to be sweet, are local favourites.

The most emblematic food is the gordita, a thick corn or sometimes flour tortilla split and stuffed with one of many savoury fillings; it began as a meal carried out to the fields. Sweets follow traditions brought by nuns from convents further south, including crystallised fruits and cajeta, the Mexican dulce de leche.

Mezcal is the most important drink, and Durango is one of the states with a designation of origin for it. The Mercado Gómez Palacio and the cafés and food stalls of the Paseo Constitución are the easiest places to try local food in the centre.