Villa de Álvarez

Villa de Álvarez, officially Ciudad de Villa de Álvarez, is the city that has grown into the northwest side of Colima, the state capital, so that the two now form one urban area at the foot of the volcanoes, at about 520 metres above sea level. It is the seat of the municipality of the same name and had 147,496 people at the 2020 census, almost 30,000 more than in 2010, which made it the second-largest city in the state after Manzanillo and slightly larger than Colima itself.

The town began with the Franciscans, who founded the convent of San Francisco de Colimán, later called Almoloyán, on 22 February 1554; two years later the viceroy Luis de Velasco authorised an Indigenous town beside it, San Francisco de Almoloyán. Its priest José Antonio Díaz raised local men for the independence cause in 1810. On 15 September 1860 the town was made a municipal seat and renamed Villa de Álvarez in honour of General Manuel Álvarez, Colima's first constitutional governor, who was born here. Trams linked it with central Colima from 1892, and the first stone of the present parish church of San Francisco de Asís was laid on 4 October 1903.

Villa de Álvarez is famous in Colima for food: the sopitos de la Villa served in evening cenadurías around the centre, the milk and fruit paletas sold in the main garden, and the empanadas sold there every 4 October for the feast of St Francis. In the garden stands La Cabalgata, a life-size bronze by Octavio González of six horses, one of them riderless so visitors can climb on. Above all the city is known for the Fiestas Charrotaurinas, held every February in honour of San Felipe de Jesús, with horseback cabalgatas from Colima, giant mojigangas and bullfights in La Petatera. This bullring, first documented in 1854, is rebuilt each year without nails or cement from palm and otate poles, ixtle rope and almost 3,000 tule mats by about 70 families of builders; it is about 60 m across, holds more than 6,400 people in 70 tablados, and is taken down in a single day. It was declared state cultural heritage in 2013 and is listed by Mexico's fine arts institute as a national artistic monument.