San Juan

For almost three centuries Libres was called San Juan de los Llanos, and the barrio of San Juan keeps that name, beside the church of San Juan Bautista de los Llanos in the centre of town. Before the Conquest the area was called Hueytlalli, "great land", and was home to Otomí and Nahua people; in 1555 Crown papers arrived authorising the founding of San Juan de los Llanos, which grew in colonial times as a safe stop for merchants carrying gold and silver toward Veracruz and Spain.

The church is Baroque, from the 18th century, though the exact date of construction is unknown, and keeps a Baroque altarpiece of cypress wood. According to a note by the priest Ambrosio, on 9 April 1876 General Villagrán attacked the town, defended by Colonel Rafael Zarre, and the assault burned the main door, four altars and the organ and damaged the choir vault and one of the arches; the gaps were filled with four Romanesque-style altars, the third dedicated to the Virgin of Guadalupe and decorated with gold leaf. In 1968, on the parish's 400th anniversary, the church was consecrated with the old ceremonial, something few churches have.

The fair of Saint John, the patron of Libres, is on 24 June. Ciudad de Libres had 18,110 people in 2020 and stands at about 2,380 m on the edge of the Llanos de San Juan, the old lake-bed plain that inherited the same name.