Analco

Analco is one of the barrios Guadalajara was born with. Its name is Nahuatl and means across the river: the river was the San Juan de Dios, now piped beneath Calzada Independencia, and Mexicaltzingo lay on the far bank. It was founded around 1543, alongside the city's last settlement in the Atemajac valley, as a town of Coca and Tecuexe people under Franciscan care. It stayed a separate town until 1821, when it was folded into the capital as just another barrio.

The heart is the Templo de San Sebastián de Analco and its garden with a bandstand. The church began as an adobe hermitage with a thatched roof, raised by the indigenous residents themselves; the first written mention dates from 1560 and most of what stands today is from the second half of the 17th century. It has a basilica plan of three aisles and five bays, with chapels of the Virgin of Guadalupe and of the Calvary. In the garden are bronzes of Cuauhtémoc and of Tenamaztli, the leader of the Mixtón War, and a monument to the victims of the 22 April 1992 explosions.

Other eras have left traces around it. The Patio de los Ángeles, with arcades brought from the former convent of the Agustinas Recoletas, is a cultural centre of the Jalisco Secretaría de Cultura. At Plaza de la Bandera the arches of the old San Pedro toll gate were rebuilt. The barrio was home to silversmiths, shoemakers, carpenters and blacksmiths, and to a community of Japanese families; the Nichiboku institute is still at Guadalupe Victoria 131. The cantina La Sin Rival is billed as the oldest in the area.