Morelia

People lived in the Guayangareo Valley from at least the 7th century. The Purépecha dominated it from the 12th century without building a major town, and Matlatzinca settlers lived there with their permission, around what is now Plaza Juárez. The Spanish arrived in 1525–26, and in 1541 Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza founded a new city here. Its rapid growth threatened Bishop Vasco de Quiroga's capital at Pátzcuaro, and a long rivalry followed; the town received city status in 1545 as Valladolid, after Mendoza's home town, and after Quiroga's death the bishopric and government moved here in 1580.

The 17th and 18th centuries built the city that survives: the aqueduct, the cathedral, begun in 1660 and finished in 1744, and many monasteries and convents. Valladolid was a small city of about 20,000 but a centre of learning, and its College of San Nicolás and seminary educated Miguel Hidalgo and José María Morelos. A conspiracy against Spanish rule was uncovered in 1809; in 1810 Hidalgo took the city and proclaimed the end of slavery, and in 1814 the insurgent Mariano Matamoros was shot in the main square. In 1828 the city was renamed Morelia in Morelos's honour.

Liberal and conservative forces fought over Morelia through the 19th century, and the French occupied it in 1863. Factories, the telegraph and, in 1883, the railway followed. In the 20th century the city grew far beyond its colonial core, the historic centre was protected by law, and in 1991 UNESCO declared it a World Heritage Site. Street vendors were moved out of the centre in 2001, and in 2008 a grenade attack in the city killed eight people.

Morelia's identity rests on its stone. Almost all of the 1,113 historic buildings in the centre are of pink cantera stone, giving the city a unity that earned it nicknames such as the City of Pink Stone and the Garden of New Spain. The cathedral, dedicated to the Transfiguration of Christ, dominates the skyline.

It is also a city of learning and music. The Universidad Michoacana traces its roots to the College of San Nicolás founded by Vasco de Quiroga, and the Conservatorio de las Rosas, in a historic monastery, is home to the Morelia Boys Choir. The International Music Festival, begun in 1988 with the dream of making Morelia the "Salzburg of the Americas", brings orchestras and soloists from around the world, and the International Film Festival, founded in 2003, has become one of the main showcases for new Mexican cinema.

Pride in the independence heroes runs deep: Morelos's birthplace and his house are museums, and people born on 30 September are traditionally named after the city. The old bullring, the Plaza Monumental, now hosts concerts and lucha libre, and Atlético Morelia carries on the football tradition after the old first-division club moved to Mazatlán in 2020.

About 743,000 people lived in the city at the 2020 census, out of about 849,000 in the municipality and nearly 990,000 in the metropolitan area, which includes Tarímbaro and Charo. Morelia is the largest city in Michoacán and grew by almost 145,000 people between 2010 and 2020.

Services, commerce and tourism, drawn by the colonial centre, are the main economic activities, followed by construction and manufacturing. The Ciudad Industrial houses small and medium-sized firms making cooking oil, flour, cement, plastics and sweets. Crime linked to the drug trade in Michoacán has been a brake on tourism.

Rapid growth has brought problems. Since the 1980s, falling water tables from groundwater pumping have aggravated movement along geological faults beneath the city, damaging buildings, and new suburbs are spreading into the forests to the north that recharge the city's aquifer. Daily life for most residents is in the newer districts outside the centre, where combis, the shared minivans, carry much of the traffic, while the historic centre, cleared of street vendors and much through-traffic, is the place for strolling, shopping and meeting friends in the plazas.

Michoacán's kitchen is one of Mexico's most distinctive, and Morelia is a good place to try it. Uchepos, small soft tamales of sweet fresh corn, are a breakfast staple, and corundas, triangular tamales eaten with cream and salsa, are their savoury counterpart. Sopa tarasca is a smooth bean soup flavoured with dried pasilla chillies and swirled with cream, and enchiladas morelianas, filled with chicken and potatoes, take their deep red colour and slow heat from guajillo chillies. Carnitas, pork slowly cooked in its own fat, are famous across the state, especially from the town of Quiroga.

Sweets are a Morelia speciality. Ate, a dense fruit paste sold in blocks, is the best known, and the Mercado de Dulces is lined with stalls of traditional sweets; a sweets museum is devoted to the craft. The ice-cream and paleta shops called La Michoacana, found all over Mexico, take their name from the state's tradition of fruit ice lollies.

The Mercado Independencia is the city's main food market, with fresh produce, meat and regional foods from across Michoacán, while the restaurants under the portals of the main plaza and around the Jardín de las Rosas serve the classic dishes at outdoor tables.