Mexico’s Second City: Guadalajara (In Pictures), Guadalajara, Mexico

Guadalajara, located in the Western-Pacific area of Mexico, is the capital and largest city of the Mexican state of Jalisco. The Guadalajara metropolitan area has a reported population of over five million inhabitants, making it the second most populous metropolitan area in Mexico, behind Mexico City. It’s also the tenth-largest Latin American city in population, urban area and gross domestic product.

The city was officially established in 1542 by the Spanish king Charles I and granted the coat of arms that the city still has today. I won’t bore you with the amount of bloodshed this region (and just about every other region of Mexico) has endured, starting with the Spaniards and the natives of the land upon settlement through the Mexican War of Independence, but it’s been a lot. Despite the violence, the 19th century was a period of economic, technological and social growth for the city.

Guadalajara again experienced substantial growth after the 1930s, and the first industrial park was established in 1947. Its population surpassed one million in 1964, and by the 1970s it was Mexico’s second-largest city and the largest in western Mexico. Since 1996, the activity of multinational corporations has had a significant effect on the economic and social development of the city. The presence of companies such as Kodak, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola and IBM has been based on production facilities built outside the city proper, bringing in foreign labor and capital. ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).