Taxco

The name comes from the Nahuatl Tlachco, "place of the ballgame", and the town's coat of arms still shows a ball court. Before the Spanish came, the community called Taxco stood about 10 km to the south, at what is now Taxco el Viejo, where an Aztec governor collected tribute from seven districts. Hernán Cortés founded the Spanish town on its present site because of the silver here; lodes were found in the 1530s, and haciendas such as El Chorrillo, built by men of Cortés, began commercial mining.

For most of the colonial period Taxco remained small and was governed as a dependency of Mexico City. In the mid 18th century José de la Borda arrived and opened new mines, made a fortune and spent it lavishly on the church of Santa Prisca in the 1750s; when his mines ran out he was practically bankrupt. As the only sizeable town in the area, Taxco was taken in several wars — by Hermenegildo Galeana in 1815, by Porfirio Díaz in 1865 and by revolutionary forces in 1911 — and became a municipal seat when Guerrero state was created. "De Alarcón" was added to its name in 1872 in honour of the playwright Juan Ruiz de Alarcón, born here.

The modern town was made by William Spratling, an American designer who arrived in 1929, set up silver workshops with master silversmiths from Iguala and exported their work, mostly to the United States. Tourism followed. The last large mine on the edge of town began closing in 2007, and in 2002 Taxco was named a Pueblo Mágico, the third place in Mexico to receive the title.

Silver defines Taxco's identity. Spratling's workshops trained generations of local silversmiths, and more than 3,000 now work in the town, which calls itself the silver capital of the world. Their work fills the shops around the main square, and the National Silver Fair, held in late November and early December, is the year's showcase. The William Spratling Museum keeps the designer's own collection of pre-Hispanic objects.

Religion runs deep. Holy Week is internationally famous: between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday ten major processions wind through the steep streets, centred on Santa Prisca, a tradition dating back at least to 1622. On Palm Sunday vendors, mostly from the nearby village of Tlamacazapa, sell palm leaves woven into intricate designs. Smaller churches keep their own feasts, including the festival of San Antonio Abad in January.

Theatre honours Juan Ruiz de Alarcón, one of the great dramatists of Spain's Golden Age, born in Taxco: the Jornadas Alarconianas, established in 1987, stage plays in the town each May, and three of its small squares carry monuments to him. The Día del Jumil keeps an older custom, when townspeople climb the Cerro del Jumil to gather the insects, a practice traced to Aztec pilgrimages to a hilltop temple. Basketball is the most popular sport in the municipality.

The 2020 census counted about 50,000 people in the city of Taxco. The population grew fast in the second half of the 20th century, from about 10,000 in 1950 to around 50,000 by 2000, as silver and tourism drew people in. The town spreads over very rugged ground, with houses stacked up the hillsides, red-tiled roofs and streets paved in dark stone inlaid with white patterns; some of those patterns once marked trades, such as the sign of Taurus near Santa Prisca where butchers worked.

Silverwork and tourism are the mainstays of the economy. Mining, once the town's reason for being, ended as a major employer when the last big operation was phased out from 2007 after its reserves ran low. Silver is sold locally and exported abroad, and much of the town works in making, selling or serving visitors who come to buy it.

Daily movement depends on taxis and combis, converted Volkswagen vans that thread the narrow lanes, since the streets are too steep and tight for much else. Weekends bring visitors from Mexico City, and the square fills in the evenings. The Casa Borda serves as a cultural centre with classes in languages, art and sport, and the Ex Hacienda del Chorrillo houses a university campus for foreign students and fine arts.

Maize is the staple in Taxco, and pozole and tacos are everyday food, as in the rest of Guerrero. The town's best-known speciality is the jumil, a small stink bug gathered on the surrounding hills, harvested from November to February and sold in the markets. Jumiles are eaten in tacos or ground into a mole sauce, and local people credit them with health-giving properties.

Other local dishes include cecina, a salted and cured meat, and tamales made with plums or beans. The town's own drink is the berta, a honey margarita. Corn appears at every meal, from tortillas and tamales to the antojitos sold in the markets, and the hominy for pozole is prepared from dried maize treated with lime, as across Mexico.

The restaurants around Plaza Borda, some on upper floors looking across at Santa Prisca, cater largely to weekend visitors from Mexico City, while the markets and small family restaurants on the lanes below serve the town's own residents.