Pénjamo

Pénjamo is the largest town in southwestern Guanajuato, with 43,249 people in 2020, and one of the busiest trading centers in the state. Much of it sits against the slopes of the Sierra de Pénjamo; the center lies in a hollow while other neighborhoods climb the hills, so very steep streets sit next to dead-straight ones. The name comes from the Purépecha Pénxamu, place of ahuehuete (Montezuma cypress) trees, and a cypress fills the front of the town's coat of arms.

Its motto is Cradle of Hidalgo: Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla was born on 8 May 1753 at the Corralejo hacienda, then under Pénjamo's jurisdiction, and his parents married in the town's parish church of San Francisco de Asís. Before the Spanish arrived the area was home to Guachichil and Purépecha people. The town of San Francisco de Penxamo was founded on 12 November 1542, a date still celebrated. Fighting reached the town during the War of Independence, and in 1815 it was burned to the ground; rebuilding began around 1830. In the nearby sierra the insurgent Francisco Xavier Mina was executed in 1817. Pénjamo became a villa in 1857 and a city in 1906.

The historic center keeps old mansions, the parish churches of San Francisco de Asís and Nuestra Señora de los Remedios, the church of San Antonio de Padua, the town hall, the house of culture and a market right downtown, along with most of the hotels, restaurants and cafés. To the south, the district of Santa Ana Pacueco runs straight into La Piedad, Michoacán, with only the Lerma River and seven bridges between them; since 2010 the two have formed one metropolitan area.

This is tequila country: distilleries around town, some still artisanal, run tours from the agave fields to the bottling line. The Sierra de Pénjamo, between 1,700 and 2,500 m high, has canyons, rivers and woods where deer still live, and is used for hiking and camping.