Atlas Trail
Nine Mexican Cities from the Border at Tijuana to the Sierra Madre del Sur
This path crosses Mexico from the northern border to the southern mountains, stopping at nine cities that are not on any other trail here. They show different jobs a Mexican city does: border crossing, export manufacturing, shoemaking, pottery and food, suburban growth, and state government, in an order that runs roughly north to south.
Stop 1 of 9.
Cities
Tijuana lies on the northwestern Pacific coast of Mexico immediately south of San Diego, and its page calls it the most populous city in Baja California, with 1,810,645 inhabitants in 2020. It sits at one of the busiest land border crossings in the world and has grown into a manufacturing and cross-border commercial center, which makes it the natural first stop.
Stop 2 of 9.
Cities
Ciudad Juarez, known until 1888 as El Paso del Norte, faces El Paso, Texas across the Rio Grande and forms one of the largest binational metropolitan areas on the border. Its page records 1,512,450 people in 2020 and an economy built on maquiladora factories that assemble goods for export to the United States.
Stop 3 of 9.
Cities
Durango, officially Victoria de Durango, is the capital of the state of the same name and sits at 1,890 meters in the Valley of Guadiana. Its page records 616,068 people at the 2020 census and says the official name honors Guadalupe Victoria, the first president of Mexico, a native of the state.
Stop 4 of 9.
Cities
Aguascalientes is the capital and most populous city of its state, in the Bajio region on a steppe-climate valley at 1,880 meters. Its page records 797,010 people in the city proper in 2010 and a founding on 22 October 1575 by Spanish families relocating from Lagos de Moreno.
Stop 5 of 9.
Cities
Leon is the most populous city of Guanajuato, with 1,579,803 people in the 2020 census, and is long known as the shoemaking capital of Mexico for its concentration of leather and footwear makers. It is the stop where a single industry defines a large Bajio city.
Stop 6 of 9.
Cities
Zapopan is the most populous municipality in Jalisco and part of the Guadalajara Metropolitan Area, with 1,476,491 people in 2020. It began as a separate colonial town around the Basilica of Our Lady of Zapopan, a Catholic pilgrimage site, and keeps its own historic center while serving as a residential and commercial extension of Guadalajara.
Stop 7 of 9.
Cities
Puebla is the capital and largest city of its state, founded by Spanish colonists in the sixteenth century on a site with no prior indigenous settlement. Its page records 1,542,232 people in 2020 and credits the city with Talavera pottery, the mole poblano sauce, and the 1862 Battle of Puebla commemorated on Cinco de Mayo.
Stop 8 of 9.
Cities
Ecatepec de Morelos is the most populous suburb of Greater Mexico City, with 1,645,352 people in the 2020 census. Its Nahuatl name means windy hill or hill devoted to the wind god Ehecatl; Aztec rulers held it from 1428, Jose Maria Morelos was executed there in 1815, and it was declared a city only on 1 December 1980 after decades of rapid growth.
Stop 9 of 9.
Cities
Chilpancingo de los Bravo ends the path in the Sierra Madre del Sur, on the bank of the Huacapa River at about 1,242 meters. The capital of Guerrero had 225,728 people in 2020, the smallest city on this path, and it lies on Federal Highway 95 between Acapulco and Mexico City.
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