Autlán de Navarro

Autlán de Navarro, or simply Autlán, is the largest city in southern Jalisco: it had 52,019 people at the 2020 census, four in five of the municipality's population, and together with El Grullo and El Limón forms the Autlán metropolitan area. It lies 920 metres above sea level in a warm farming valley, about 192 km from Guadalajara on Federal Highway 80, the road that runs down to the coast at Barra de Navidad. The name comes from Nahuatl and means "next to the ditch"; for centuries it was called Autlán de la Grana, after the cochineal insects raised on the local prickly pears for their red dye, and since 1939 it has carried the surname of the teacher and general Paulino Navarro, who died in 1923.

The first settlers were Nahua families who made their homes beside the La Zanja stream. In 1510 Capaya, lord of Autlán, joined forces with other lordships and defeated the Purépecha in the so-called Saltpetre War, and later drove off the Spanish twice before falling in a third battle; the region was conquered in 1524. The Franciscans founded a convent here in 1543, now the parish church of the Divino Salvador, with a stone doorway dated 1745. Autlán has been a bishop's seat since 1961: its cathedral, a single nave with a tiled dome and a neoclassical stone facade, was begun in the late 19th century and its main facade was only finished in 2005.

The date that fills the city is the Carnaval Taurino de Autlán de la Grana, born in 1831 when a resident named Mardueño asked the council for permission to hold ten bullfights that had to end before Ash Wednesday. It still runs over the ten days before Lent, with bullfights in a first-category bullring seating 6,200, the lantern parade, the "burial of bad humour", floats and an avenue turned into the "callejón de la alegría", lined with food and drink stalls. It is the high season: the city has about 260 hotel rooms.

Autlán is also the birthplace of Carlos Santana, born here on 20 July 1947, the son of a mariachi musician; a plaza bears his name. The University of Guadalajara's Costa Sur campus is in the city, and 21.8% of the municipality lies within the Sierra de Manantlán Biosphere Reserve. Local cooking means birria, carnitas and white pozole, with charamuscas and mint pirulines for something sweet, and lechuguilla, mezcal or pineapple tepache to drink.