Mexico's biggest state hides a canyon system deeper than the Grand Canyon
Chihuahua is famous for a desert and a tiny dog, but Mexico's largest state is also its second most forested. Its Copper Canyon system is bigger and deeper than the Grand Canyon, it holds the Naica crystal cave, and in 1640 one of its towns produced more silver than anywhere on Earth.
Covering 247,455 square kilometres, a little more than the United Kingdom, Chihuahua is nicknamed El Estado Grande. It sits in Mexico's northwest, bordering New Mexico and Texas, and is dominated by the Sierra Madre Occidental, part of the same continental spine as the Rocky Mountains. The Chepe railway runs from Chihuahua City through Copper Canyon to Los Mochis on the Gulf of California. The most accepted explanation of the name traces it to Nahuatl for the place where rivers meet.
People have lived here a long time. Clovis spear points found in the northeast date from 12,000 to 7000 BCE, and at Cerro Juanaqueña squash farming, irrigation and pottery go back to about 2000 BCE. Between 300 and 1300 the Casas Grandes culture flourished in the San Miguel Valley, centred on Paquimé, now a UNESCO World Heritage site, with cliff dwellings such as the Cave of Windows built along trade routes.
The first Spaniards, under Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, reached the area around 1528, and conquest took nearly a century against fierce resistance. Gold found in the 1560s led to Santa Bárbara, the region's first Spanish town, settled with 400 European families. A rich silver vein struck in 1631 created Parral, and in 1598 Juan de Oñate found the northern pass that later became Ciudad Juárez. Chihuahua City was founded in 1709. Miguel Hidalgo, the priest who launched Mexico's independence struggle, was executed there in 1811, and Benito Juárez made it the national capital from 1864 to 1867 during the French intervention.
Today Chihuahua is Mexico's top exporting state, thanks to electronics and transport equipment factories. Ciudad Juárez, its largest city, is an international manufacturing centre, Cuauhtémoc is renowned for apples, and the capital's municipality has one of the highest human development scores in the country. Trade under NAFTA brought billions of dollars, though the border region also suffers from drug cartel activity.
Source: Chihuahua (state)
