Valle de Banderas

Valle de Banderas is the municipal seat of Bahía de Banderas, a farming town of about 8,700 people (2020 census) on the fertile plain north of the Ameca River, at roughly 60 m above sea level and some 30 km by road north of Puerto Vallarta. It sits inland at the foot of the Sierra de Vallejo, away from the resort coast, and although the beach towns of its municipality have grown far larger, it remains the place where the town hall stands and where the whole municipality gathers for civic celebrations.

Its name is the origin of the bay's. Before the conquest this was Tintoque or Tintoc, the head town of a small chiefdom of the Cuyuteco people within the old kingdom of Xalisco, who farmed the valley rather than fishing the sea. When Francisco Cortés de San Buenaventura arrived in 1525, the local warriors met him carrying banners of brightly coloured feathers, and the Spaniards named the place Valle de Banderas, the valley of flags; in time the name passed to the bay. Tobacco was grown on the haciendas of the valley from the 17th century, and the town later belonged to Compostela until December 1989, when Bahía de Banderas was created as Nayarit's twentieth municipality with Valle de Banderas as its seat.

Today it is a working town of fields, small shops and a shady main plaza, Parque Hidalgo, with a bandstand and fountain, the municipal palace and an old brick church whose bell tower rises over the square. The surrounding farms grow much of the fresh produce eaten in Puerto Vallarta, and cultural food tours from Vallarta walk through the town and stop at nearby farms. On the night of 15 September the plaza fills for the municipality's Noche Mexicana and the Grito, followed the next day by the Independence parade.