Ciudad Sahagún

Ciudad Sahagún, officially named Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, grew around three factories rather than a church. In the early 1950s President Miguel Alemán chose land in Tepeapulco, 95 km north of Mexico City, for a model industrial hub meant to lift the Llanos de Apan out of poverty. Diesel Nacional (DINA) was set up on 28 July 1951 under licence from Italy's Fiat; work on Concarril's first railway-car plant began in 1952, and in 1954 came the Toyoda de México textile-machinery works, later Siderúrgica Nacional (Sidena).

The workers' town was laid out alongside: 1,317 houses and 46 flats with a market, sports fields, schools and clinics, plus 515 more homes built by the IMSS in 1961. Sahagún joined Tepeapulco municipality in 1971, and Renault arrived in 1979. That plant's closure in 1986 cost seven thousand jobs; Concarril went to Bombardier, Sidena went bankrupt and DINA shut its last truck factory. From some 40,000 jobs the town was down to about 12,000 by 2008, and firms such as Gerdau, SCA and Greenbrier have since moved in. With 31,737 residents in 2020, it is the most populous place in Hidalgo that is not a municipal seat.

The town lies at 2,448 metres on the pulque-growing plateau, in a dry temperate climate, with Cerro Xihuingo in the Chichicuautla range on the skyline. Its heart is Plaza Rodrigo Gómez, remodelled in 2010, with the main church facing it. The festivities gather there: the founding anniversary fills the second week of October with cultural and sports events; on 12 December more than 400 floats carry images of the Virgin of Guadalupe along Avenida México to the church; and on the second weekend of December paper hot-air balloons go up at a festival that began in 2008. A national huapango contest is also held during the fair.