The Bajío & the Colonial Heartland

Before the Spanish, the northern part of this plateau was the land of the Chichimeca, a Spanish name for the nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples of the arid north, while Otomí and Purépecha farmers lived on its southern edge. Older cultures left sites such as La Quemada in Zacatecas and Plazuelas in Guanajuato, and the Huastec people lived in the eastern lowlands.

Silver changed everything. Ore was found at Zacatecas in 1546 and at Guanajuato soon after, setting off the Chichimeca War, a long conflict that the Spanish ended in the 1590s through payments and settlement rather than conquest. Querétaro, San Miguel, San Luis Potosí and Aguascalientes grew as mining centres, supply towns and stops on the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, and by the 18th century Guanajuato's La Valenciana mine was one of the richest in the world. The fertile Bajío plain fed the mines with wheat and meat.

The region was the cradle of independence. Conspirators met in Querétaro, and on 16 September 1810 the priest Miguel Hidalgo called for revolt at Dolores; his army, joined by Ignacio Allende of San Miguel, stormed the Alhóndiga de Granaditas granary in Guanajuato. Querétaro saw the execution of Emperor Maximilian in 1867 and the drafting of the 1917 constitution, and Pancho Villa's victory at Zacatecas in 1914 was one of the decisive battles of the Revolution. The Cristero War of the 1920s was fought hard in the Bajío. Since the 1990s, car, aerospace and appliance factories have transformed the plain.

The region is often seen as conservative and Catholic, and religious life is visible everywhere: Holy Week processions, pilgrimages to the sanctuary of Atotonilco near San Miguel, and patron saint fiestas with fireworks and dances. The Cristero heritage is still honoured in many towns. Real de Catorce, in the San Luis Potosí desert, is a place of pilgrimage for Catholics and also lies near Wirikuta, the sacred land of the Wixárika, or Huichol, who travel there to gather peyote.

Guanajuato's university gives the city a student character, with estudiantinas, groups of students in Renaissance costume, leading nightly callejoneadas, singing walks through the alleys. The Festival Internacional Cervantino, begun in 1972, fills the city with theatre and music each autumn. San Miguel de Allende has attracted foreign artists and retirees since the 1940s, and it is one of Mexico's largest communities of US and Canadian residents.

Crafts are regional: pottery in Dolores Hidalgo, leather and shoes in León, Otomí crafts around Querétaro, and masks in Zacatecas. Aguascalientes's San Marcos fair, held since the 19th century, is one of the largest in Mexico, with bullfights, cockfights and concerts.

About 14 million people live in the five states, nearly half of them in Guanajuato. León, with around 1.7 million, is the region's largest city and a centre of shoe and leather manufacturing; Querétaro, San Luis Potosí and Aguascalientes each have around a million people in their metropolitan areas, while Guanajuato city and Zacatecas are much smaller.

The Bajío is one of Mexico's main industrial corridors. Car plants and suppliers run from Aguascalientes and San Luis Potosí to Silao, Salamanca and Celaya, and Querétaro has become a centre for aerospace and data centres. Farming remains important, with strawberries, broccoli and other vegetables grown for export, and Zacatecas produces beans and chillies. Mining still matters in Zacatecas and San Luis Potosí.

Growth has brought pressure: traffic, new suburbs, rising rents and stress on groundwater, as well as violence in parts of Guanajuato and Zacatecas. Many families in rural Zacatecas and Guanajuato depend on money sent by relatives working in the United States.

Guanajuato is known for enchiladas mineras, miners' enchiladas filled with cheese and served with potatoes and carrots, and León for guacamayas, bread rolls filled with pork crackling and a sharp salsa. Celaya is famous for cajeta, a thick caramel of goat's milk, and Irapuato for strawberries.

San Luis Potosí has enchiladas potosinas, small folded tortillas made with red chilli dough and filled with cheese. In its Huasteca the food changes to tropical: zacahuil, a very large tamal baked in a wood-fired oven, and bocoles, small corn cakes. Zacatecas celebrates with asado de boda, pork in a chilli sauce served at weddings, and is known for its gorditas.

Querétaro and Aguascalientes grow wine: the Querétaro wine and cheese route around Tequisquiapan and Ezequiel Montes produces sparkling and still wines and sheep's and cow's milk cheeses. Mezcal is made in Zacatecas and San Luis Potosí. Guavas from Aguascalientes are used in sweets and drinks.

Guanajuato fills a ravine with coloured houses and plazas: the Teatro Juárez, the Alhóndiga de Granaditas museum, the Callejón del Beso, Diego Rivera's birthplace, the mummy museum and the La Valenciana church and mine above town. San Miguel de Allende, about 90 minutes away, has its cobbled centre and parish church, and the nearby sanctuary of Atotonilco; both towns are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Dolores Hidalgo, where the revolt began, lies between them.

Querétaro's centre has its aqueduct, the Theatre of the Republic and many convents. The state also holds the monolith of the Peña de Bernal and the Sierra Gorda, where 18th-century Franciscan missions with carved facades are UNESCO-listed. Zacatecas has its cathedral, the cable car to the Cerro de la Bufa, the El Edén mine tour and museums of masks and art; La Quemada lies to the south. Aguascalientes has the San Marcos garden and fair and a museum of José Guadalupe Posada.

San Luis Potosí city has a baroque centre, and to the north lies Real de Catorce, reached through a long tunnel. The Huasteca Potosina, to the east, is the region's natural highlight: the Tamul waterfall, the Micos cascades, the Sótano de las Golondrinas pit where swifts spiral out each morning, and Las Pozas at Xilitla.