San Cristóbal de Las Casas

History

There was no pre-Hispanic city in this valley, which Nahuatl speakers called Hueyzacatlán and which Tzotzil and Tzeltal speakers know as Jovel. After defeating the Zoques of the northern mountains and the Chiapanecs, Diego de Mazariegos founded Villa Real de Chiapa here on March 31, 1528, as a military stronghold and provincial capital. The name changed several times; it received a coat of arms in 1535 and became Ciudad Real in 1536. In 1543 the Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas arrived as the first bishop of Chiapas.

Throughout the colonial period the city was the seat of Spanish power in Chiapas, which was governed from Guatemala. In 1821 it followed Comitán in declaring independence from Spain and Guatemala, and Chiapas joined Mexico in 1824 with its capital here. The first university in Chiapas opened in the city in 1826. The name became San Cristóbal in 1829, and "de Las Casas" was added in 1848 in the bishop's honor.

In the nineteenth century the state government moved back and forth four times between conservative San Cristóbal and liberal Tuxtla, settling in Tuxtla for good in 1892; an armed attempt to win the capital back in 1911 failed. The city remained the commercial center of the highlands and grew into the state's main tourist destination. It was named a Pueblo Mágico in 2003.