Canatlán

Canatlán is a town of about 12,000 people (11,943 at the 2020 census) on the high plains north of the state capital, at 1,933 meters. The name comes from Nahuatl and is usually rendered as place of the water nest, though some link it to a place of ducks. It is the seat of a municipality that runs from the valleys up into the western sierra, and in Durango the name is practically shorthand for apples: orchards of apples and pears surround the town and continue toward Nuevo Ideal and Guatimapé.

Before the town existed, the area was called the Valle de La Sauceda. In the years when the Jesuits were opening new missions around the town of Durango after the Tepehuán revolt, Franciscan friars founded a mission dedicated to San Diego near La Sauceda, and the place took the name San Diego de Canatlán. The oldest known document is a certification dated January 3, 1623, signed by Fray Diego de Espinoza, head of the mission's convent. San Diego de Alcalá is still the patron saint, honored on November 13. The parish church in the center, painted yellow with a stone tower, dates from the 18th century and was rebuilt in the early 19th century and again in 1914. Around the town are the hacienda of La Sauceda, built by the Jesuits in the 17th century, the ruined hacienda and church of Guatimapé, and a community museum in Gomelia with obsidian points, arrows, pottery and other pre-Hispanic finds.

The big event is the Feria de la Manzana, the apple fair, held since 1950 at the initiative of then mayor Francisco Treviño Martínez. The 2026 fair, the 74th, ran from September 11 to 20 and closed on the 20th, which since 2024 has been Mexico's National Apple Day, timed to the end of the harvest. La Sauceda honors the Divine Shepherd on the first Friday of March, and in May the neighborhoods stage the Santa Cruz pageant. The climate is temperate: May and June are the hottest months, the rains come from July to September, and December to February bring frost and the odd bout of sleet. The municipality also takes in the Laguna de Santiaguillo, the state's most important wetland.