Armería

Armería, officially Ciudad de Armería, is a small city on Colima's coastal plain, beside the river of the same name and about 13 km west of Tecomán, with whose metropolitan area it is counted. It had 15,368 people at the 2020 census (27,626 in the whole municipality), making it the fifth-largest community in the state, and it stands only about 20 metres above sea level. The climate is hot, with an average of about 26 °C and most rain in July, August and September. Around it lie fields and orchards of limes, mangoes, papayas, bananas, tamarind, sorghum, maize and coconut palms; the local agro-industry packs limes and turns coconuts into grated coconut and fibre, and salt is still taken from the beds around the Laguna de Cuyutlán.

The origin of the name is disputed. One story says boats were fitted out here; another, that in colonial times a post of viceregal guards stood here to protect travellers on the Camino Real between Colima and the coast from bandits; a third points to a hacienda of that name, which later became the core of the town. Older names recorded for the place include Nagualapa and Mahuala. The railway arrived in 1882, and the area suffered badly in the earthquake and tsunami of 22 June 1932, which wrecked Cuyutlán. Armería became a pueblo within the municipality of Manzanillo by a decree of 29 April 1935, was made a municipality in its own right on 3 June 1967, making it the youngest in Colima, and was raised to city status on 1 October 1988.

Most visitors pass through on their way to the sea. Armería's two beach towns lie in the municipality: Cuyutlán, with its salt museum, turtle camp and the famous Ola Verde swells of spring, and El Paraíso, a hamlet of a few hundred people about 7 km from town where more than 30 ramadas serve ceviche, pescado zarandeado, garlic prawns and octopus on a dark-sand beach. El Paraíso fills up above all at Easter, its waves draw surfers and windsurfers, and boat trips run through the nearby mangrove estuary to see birds. On a hill at the edge of Armería stands a monumental head of Benito Juárez.