Layout of Zacatecas
The city is wedged into a narrow ravine at about 2,440 m between two hills: the Cerro de la Bufa, a rock outcrop of roughly 2,650 m on the north-east side, and the Cerro del Grillo opposite. Silver was found at the foot of the Bufa in 1546 and the town grew along the gully rather than on a grid, which is why the streets bend and climb and why the centre survives largely as it was built. UNESCO inscribed it as a World Heritage site in 1993.
Avenida Hidalgo runs the length of the ravine and is the spine of the centro histórico. The cathedral stands on it, built between 1730 and 1772 in pink cantera stone and carrying the most heavily carved churrigueresque front in Mexico. Near it are the Palacio de Gobierno, the Teatro Fernando Calderón of 1834 and the Mercado González Ortega, an iron-framed market of 1889 built into the slope and now full of shops. Two former religious buildings hold the city's main collections: the Museo Pedro Coronel in the old Jesuit college, and the Museo Rafael Coronel in the ruined convent of San Francisco, with about 10,000 Mexican masks on display. The Mina El Edén, worked from 1586, runs through the Cerro del Grillo and is entered on a mine train; a lift inside it reaches the cable-car station.
The Boulevard López Portillo and the ring road carry through traffic on the western side, where the central de autobuses sits about 4 km from the plaza. Zacatecas International, named for Leobardo C. Ruiz (ZCL), is 25 km north near Calera, with flights to Mexico City, Tijuana and several US cities.
Distances from Zacatecas
| Place | km | Time | How |
|---|---|---|---|
| Guadalupe (ex-convento) | 8 | 15 min | City bus, MX-45 east |
| Zacatecas airport (ZCL) | 25 | 30 min | Taxi, MX-45 north |
| La Quemada ruins | 55 | 45 min | MX-54 south |
| Jerez | 55 | 45 min | MX-23 west |
| Fresnillo | 60 | 45 min | MX-45 north |
| Aguascalientes | 130 | 1 h 30 | MX-45D toll road |
| San Luis Potosí | 190 | 2 h | MX-49 east |
| Durango | 290 | 3 h | MX-45 north-west |
| Guadalajara | 320 | 3 h 30 | MX-54D south |
| Monterrey | 455 | 5 h | MX-54 north via Saltillo |
| Mexico City | 610 | 6 h 30 | MX-45D and MX-57 |
The Bufa, the cable car and the mines
The teleférico, installed in 1979, spans about 650 m from the Cerro del Grillo to the Cerro de la Bufa and hangs some 85 m above the roofs of the old town — the only urban cable car in Mexico that crosses a historic centre. The summit carries the Plaza de la Revolución, the mausoleum of illustrious Zacatecans and the Museo Toma de Zacatecas, which records the battle of 23 June 1914 when Pancho Villa's División del Norte destroyed the federal garrison holding the hill and opened the road to Mexico City. Below ground, the El Edén workings show how the silver came out. The metal left by the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, the royal road that ran from Mexico City through Zacatecas to Santa Fe and which UNESCO listed in 2010; it is the line that anchors most colonial maps of northern Mexico.
Districts and surroundings
Outside the ravine the city spreads onto the plateau and merges with Guadalupe, a separate municipality 8 km east with 211,021 people in 2020 against the capital's 149,607; together with the smaller municipalities alongside them the built-up area holds about 370,000. Guadalupe's Franciscan college, founded in 1707, houses the Museo Virreinal and one of the largest collections of colonial painting in the country. Jerez, 55 km west, is a lowland market town of arcaded streets, and Fresnillo, 60 km north, sits on the Proaño hill whose mine is among the biggest silver producers in the world. La Quemada, 55 km south on the road to Guadalajara, is a hilltop city of colonnades and a pyramid occupied between roughly AD 300 and 1200, one of the northernmost sites on the archaeological sites map. The wider state of Zacatecas covers 75,275 km² of high semi-desert between the Sierra Madre and the Bajío.
Questions about Zacatecas
Where is Zacatecas on the map of Mexico?
In north-central Mexico, at about 2,440 m on the eastern flank of the Sierra Madre Occidental, 130 km north of Aguascalientes and 610 km from Mexico City. It is one of the highest cities in the country.
What is Zacatecas known for?
Silver. Mines opened here in 1546 and for two centuries the district was among the largest producers in the world; the wealth paid for the cathedral and the stone centre that UNESCO inscribed as a World Heritage site in 1993. The state is still Mexico's leading silver producer.
How do you get to the Cerro de la Bufa?
A cable car crosses from the Cerro del Grillo to the summit in about seven minutes, running above the rooftops of the old town; a road and a footpath also climb it. At the top are the Plaza de la Revolución, the mausoleum of illustrious Zacatecans and the museum of the 1914 battle.
Is Zacatecas safe to visit?
The US State Department has for several years placed Zacatecas among the Mexican states with its strongest travel warning, applied to the state as a whole, while the historic centre of the capital remains a working tourist district. Read the current State Department advisory before deciding.