Tijuana

Tijuana is the largest city in Baja California and in the Mexican northwest, right on the border with San Diego. The 2020 census counted 1,810,645 people in the city and 1,922,523 in the municipality, the most populous in the country, and about 2.16 million in the metropolitan area. It was founded officially on 11 July 1889, after a court agreement settled the dispute among the heirs of the Argüello family over the land, and it grew explosively in the twentieth century on the strength of the border, with factories, migrants arriving from all over Mexico, and visitors from Southern California.

Tourism began in the 1920s, when Prohibition in the United States made Tijuana a place to drink, gamble and go to the races, and Avenida Revolución became the main tourist street. Today the avenue and the streets around it in the Zona Centro have souvenir shops, bars and restaurants, and a big arch over the road; Pasaje Rodríguez and the Calle Sexta area have newer galleries, craft beer bars and cafés. The Centro Cultural Tijuana, known as CECUT, opened in 1982 to show the city as more than a border town; it houses the Museo de las Californias, a concert hall, and a round OMNIMAX cinema known as La Bola. Caesar's Restaurant, in the old Hotel Cesar on Avenida Revolución, is the place most associated with the Caesar salad, credited to Caesar Cardini in 1924, though several people have claimed the dish.

Tijuana's reputation today rests more on its food than on its bars. It is considered the birthplace of Baja Med cooking, which mixes Mexican, Mediterranean and Asian influences with the seafood and produce of the region, and it is counted among Mexico's craft beer capitals. Street tacos, especially al pastor and carne asada, taquerías and food trucks are everywhere, and Mercado Hidalgo, with about 80 small shops, sells ingredients from every part of Mexico.

On the Pacific side, the Playas de Tijuana borough is the westernmost part of the city, with a beach and seafront that ends at the border wall and is the start of the coast road to Rosarito and Ensenada. The border at San Ysidro is one of the busiest land crossings in the world, with about 300,000 crossings a day; waits can be long at rush hours and weekends, so check the current times before you plan the return. The climate is semi-arid and mild, with about 230 to 250 mm of rain a year, mostly between November and March, and the warmest weather in August and September.