Monterrey & the Northeast

Before the Spanish arrived, the northeast was home to nomadic hunter-gatherer groups, often grouped under the name Chichimeca or Coahuiltecan, who lived from desert plants, game and fishing on the coast. On the Gulf, the Huastec people farmed around the Pánuco river. The Spanish advance was slow: Saltillo was founded in 1577, Monterrey in 1596 by Diego de Montemayor, and Parras became a mission and wine-growing settlement at the end of the 16th century, but raids by Indigenous groups and later by Apache and Comanche bands kept the frontier fragile for two centuries.

In the early republic, Coahuila and Texas formed a single state until Texas broke away in 1836, and the war with the United States brought US troops to Monterrey in 1846. The region then produced much of the Revolution's leadership. Francisco I. Madero, whose challenge to Porfirio Díaz began the Revolution in 1910, was born in Parras, and Venustiano Carranza, from Cuatro Ciénegas, proclaimed the Plan de Guadalupe in Coahuila in 1913 and later became president.

Industry made Monterrey. A brewery was founded in 1890 and a steelworks, the Fundidora, in 1900, followed by glass, cement and banking; the city's business families built some of Mexico's largest companies, and the Tec de Monterrey university opened in 1943. Tampico boomed on oil in the early 20th century. Since the 1990s, free trade with the United States has brought car and electronics plants to Saltillo, Monterrey and the border cities, while the late 2000s brought a wave of cartel violence from which parts of the region have not recovered.

The northeast prides itself on work, thrift and self-reliance, and regiomontanos, the people of Monterrey, have a reputation in the rest of Mexico for being hard-working and careful with money. Business culture is strong, and the city's links with Texas are close: shopping trips to San Antonio and Houston are common, and English and US brands are everywhere.

Norteño music, played on accordion and bajo sexto with rhythms borrowed from the polkas of 19th-century German and Czech immigrants, is at home here, and Monterrey also has a devoted following for cumbia, especially the slowed-down style of its working-class districts. Tamaulipas has the huapango and the cuera tamaulipeca, a fringed suede jacket that is the state's traditional dress. Saltillo is known for its sarapes, brightly striped woollen blankets.

Football divides Monterrey between two big clubs, Rayados and Tigres, and their derby, the Clásico Regiomontano, stops the city. Sunday carne asada, grilling beef in the back yard with family and friends, is the social ritual of the region.

About 12 million people live in the three states. Greater Monterrey, with over five million, is Mexico's second or third largest metropolitan area, depending on the measure, and one of its richest. Saltillo and Torreón have close to a million each in their metro areas, and Tamaulipas's population is spread among Reynosa, Matamoros, Nuevo Laredo, Tampico and the state capital, Ciudad Victoria.

The economy is built on manufacturing and trade: steel in Monclova, cars and parts around Saltillo and Ramos Arizpe, appliances, cement, glass and beer in Monterrey, and factories in the border cities. Nuevo Laredo is one of the busiest trade crossings with the United States, and Tampico and Altamira are major Gulf ports. Coahuila also mines coal, and Tamaulipas has oil and gas.

Life runs at a business pace, with commutes across the sprawling metro area and shopping malls as meeting places. Water is a pressing issue: Monterrey faced a severe shortage in 2022. Migration through the border cities, and the violence along some highways, shape daily routines in Tamaulipas.

The northeast is the home of cabrito, young goat roasted slowly over coals, served by weight in Monterrey restaurants with flour tortillas and salsa. Beef dominates: arrachera, marinated skirt steak, is the centrepiece of the carne asada, machacado con huevo, dried beef scrambled with eggs, is the classic breakfast, and frijoles charros, pinto beans cooked with bacon and chile, accompany most meals.

Flour tortillas and gorditas are everyday food, and Monterrey has an enormous number of taquerías. Nuevo León and Coahuila grow pecans, used in cakes and sweets, and Linares is known for glorias, soft sweets of caramelised milk and pecans. On the Tamaulipas coast the cooking turns to seafood: crab, shrimp and fish from the Gulf, and Tampico's tortas de la barda, large sandwiches filled with several meats and toppings.

Parras produces wine and brandy, with Casa Madero's reds and whites among Mexico's best known, and Coahuila's vineyards are expanding. Monterrey's brewery gave the country beers such as Carta Blanca, and the region drinks beer in large quantities with its asados.

Monterrey has a modern centre around the Macroplaza, with the Museo de Historia Mexicana, the MARCO contemporary art museum and the Paseo Santa Lucía canal walk leading to Parque Fundidora, where old blast furnaces stand among lawns and concert venues. The Barrio Antiguo keeps the old town's bars and houses, and the Cerro de la Silla and the Obispado hill frame the city. Cumbres de Monterrey National Park begins on its western edge, with the limestone canyon of La Huasteca, the Chipinque ecological park and the Cola de Caballo waterfall near Santiago. The Grutas de García caves and El Potrero Chico, one of the world's best-known sport climbing areas, lie outside the city.

Saltillo, in Coahuila, has a Churrigueresque cathedral, the Museo del Desierto and a sarape-weaving tradition. Parras de la Fuente, a green oasis in the desert, has vineyards, spring-fed pools and Madero family houses. Further west, Cuatro Ciénegas is a protected basin of pools and white gypsum dunes.

The Tamaulipas coast runs from the Laguna Madre, a long hypersaline lagoon, past fishing villages and the turtle beaches of Rancho Nuevo to Tampico's historic centre and the beaches of Ciudad Madero. Inland, the El Cielo biosphere reserve protects cloud forest in the Sierra Madre Oriental.