Concordia

Concordia, officially Heroica Ciudad Concordia, is the seat of the municipality of the same name in southern Sinaloa, on the Río Presidio about 120 meters above sea level, where Federal Highway 40 from Villa Unión starts climbing toward Durango. It is about 40 minutes by car from Mazatlán, and with 9,864 people at the 2020 census it is the largest town in a municipality of about 25,000. The Spanish captain Francisco de Ibarra founded it on January 20, 1565, as the Villa de San Sebastián, and for a long time it lived from mining gold, silver and copper in the surrounding hills. Sinaloa's first constitution, in 1831, renamed the town and its district Concordia, after a Masonic lodge that met here.

The pride of the town is the Templo de San Sebastián on the main square, with an ornate baroque facade; the English-language Wikipedia dates it to 1785, though some local sources call it 16th century. The saint is still the town's patron, honored every January 20, and the mining fortunes of the colonial era, including that of the Spaniard Francisco Javier Vizcarra, Marqués de Pánuco, a devotee of San Sebastián, are reflected in the church. In front of it, the Plazuela Morelos has a kiosk, an old mine cart and a giant rocking chair, the Silla Poltrona, which has become the town's symbol.

The chair stands for Concordia's real trade: handmade wooden furniture, much of it made in workshops in the town and in neighboring Mesillas, about 4 km away, along with clay pottery. On the plaza, vendors sell raspados, shaved ice with homemade syrups of plum, nanchi, guava, tamarind or vanilla, the leche quemada one being the classic. Around the town, the El Magistral stream, about 20 minutes away, has a waterfall for swimming, and the El Salto falls on the same stream draw hikers. The old mining village of Copala, about 30 minutes up the highway, makes an easy second stop. Since 2014 Concordia has been a sister city of Pico Rivera, California.