Mexico Travel Guide and Destinations

Tijuana City

Tijuana is the largest city in the state of Baja California, Mexico. Tijuana is also the most northerly city in Latin America. It is known as the corner of Mexico and consequently of Latin America. The city is bordered to the north 41 kilometers by the county of San Diego, California, United States; to the south, by the municipalities of Playas de Rosarito and Ensenada; with the municipality of Tecate to the east; and to the west, by the Pacific Ocean. The municipality of Tijuana has an extension of 1,727 square kilometers and includes part of the Coronado Islands located against the coasts of the municipality in the Pacific Ocean.

History

The area in which the city of Tijuana is situated in a region once inhabited by the Kumiyay Indians, a tribe of Yuman-speaking hunter-gatherers. Europeans first arrived in 1542, when the Spanish explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo toured the coastline of the area, which was later mapped in 1602 by Sebastián Viscaíno. In 1769, Father Juan Crespí documented more detailed information about the area that would one day be called the Valley of Tijuana and Father Junípero Serra founded the first mission of Alta California in San Diego.

More settlement of the area took place near the end of the mission era when José María Echendía, governor of the Baja California and Alta California, awarded a large land grant to Santiago Argüello in 1829. This large cattle ranch, Rancho Tía Juana ("Aunt Jane"), covered 100 square kilometres.

Geography

Tijuana is at 32°53′ N 117°02′ W. This border city just south of San Diego, California, USA, is sometimes considered a mix of Mexico’s good and bad: known for its economic prosperity, popular discos, and shopping areas, Tijuana is also considered to be Mexico’s biggest illicit drug and prostitution center; a majority of the prostitutes are women from other Latin American countries, mainly Central America, who have hopes of crossing the border, ultimately, into the United States.

Origin of the city’s name

Through the years, historians have investigated where the origins of the name of the city of Tijuana came to be.

One legend says that it was the name of a ranch in the area, property of “Tía Juana” – Aunt Jane. In actuality, it is recognized that name comes from the Yuman Indian language from the early inhabitants. In other documents there are mentions of “La Tia Juana", “Tiguana", “Tiuana", “Teguana", “Tiwana", “Tijuan", “Ticuan", “Tijuana". Based on the Yuman language, historians have come to recognize Tijuana originating from “Tiwan", meaning close to the sea.

Tijuana City : Culture and education

The city has various schools of superior studies, such as conservatory music, dance schools, plastic art schools, schools for science of the arts, and with various universities and technical institutions.

The city is the seat of the COLEF (College of the Northern Frontier), an institution of scientific investigation and superior education. Their main focus is the study of the problems of the Mexican border with the United States.

For cultural activities, Tijuana has the CECUT, the Tijuana Cultural Center. As the cultural impression of the city, the CECUT has inside its installation, a theatre, lecture rooms, video rooms, library, exhibition hall, museum of the Californias, a futuristic planetary movie theater, and a restaurant. Since 1992, the CECUT has hosted the Orchestra of Baja California (OBC), it headquarters the Center of Scenic Arts of the Northwest (CAEN) and the Hispanic-American Center for Guitar (CHG). Since 2001, the CECUT receives an about a million visitors per year and is popular with students.

Economics

The U.S. dollar is an acceptable form of currency in businesses all around the city and vicinity.

Tijuana is particularly famous among the millions of U.S. college students who flock to its location each year in search of an easily accessed place with few inhibitions and a legal drinking age of eighteen.

Due to Tijuana’s proximity to the USA and its cheap labor, it is an attractive city for companies to establish extensive industrial parks comprised of maquiladoras where foreign companies employ thousands, usually in assembly related labor. This makes Tijuana an attractive city for poor migrant workers originating from the center and southern parts of Mexico, as well as other Latin American countries. Many of these migrant workers also travel illegally into the United States in search of better paying jobs.

Sports and entertainment in Tijuana City

Tijuana boasts two bullfighting rings, a racecourse and a dog track located in the old Hipódromo de Agua Caliente, the franchise of a soccer team in first division, a Mexican baseball team that plays the league during the summer, professional and university theater, the opera, as well as diverse festivals along the year.