Durango - Culture

Durango City is located in the coordinates 24Ί 02' 00N 104Ί 40'00W and situated at the foot of the Sierra Madre Occidental in the Guadiana Valley. The city is 1880 meters above sea level and 80 kilometers to the north of the Tropic of Cancer, which offers an excellent four season climate throughout the year with no extreme temperatures. The mean annual temperature is 17.3ΊC with an average precipitation of 513.3 ml.

Durango is the fourth biggest state in the Mexican Republic and represents the 6.3% of the total surface of the country. It is adjacent with the states of Nayarit and Sinaloa to the south, with Zacatecas and Coahuila to the east, with Chihuahua to the north and with Sinaloa to the west. It is politically constituted by 39 municipalities.

The capital of Durango is the city of Durango, and was founded on the 8th of July of 1563 by Captain Francisco de Ibarra. Its first inhabitants were the Nahoas, who were nomads from the north of the American Continent two thousand years ago.

The location of the city is due to iron deposits in the Cerro del Mercado (a mountain), located to the north of Durango City, which was named this way in memory of its discoverer Captain Ginez Vazquez del Mercado. The village of Durango was declared a city on October 2nd of 1620 by disposition of the pope Paul V.