🇲🇽 Mexico · The Bajío
Aguascalientes, capital of the state of the same name, is a medium-sized city in the Bajío, prosperous and pleasant, famous throughout Mexico for the Feria Nacional de San Marcos, considered the country's most important fair. Its name refers to the hot springs that once bubbled up in the area. It is a tidy, clean city with a charming colonial old town, well-kept gardens and a quality of life that makes it a comfortable stop on the Bajío route.
Beyond the fair, Aguascalientes holds a cultural treasure: it is the birthplace of José Guadalupe Posada, the brilliant engraver who created 'La Catrina', the iconic elegant skeleton that became the symbol of Mexico's Day of the Dead. The city honors him in a museum devoted to his work, and rounds out that fascination with death and its symbols with the singular National Museum of Death. Add to that colonial churches, squares, museums and the peculiar layout of neighborhoods with their craft and winemaking traditions.
This guide covers the essentials of Aguascalientes: the Plaza de la Patria and downtown, the José Guadalupe Posada Museum, the National Museum of Death, the gardens and the Cerro del Muerto, the San Marcos Fair and its food. It is a destination that shines above all during the fair, but which the rest of the year offers a calm, authentic colonial experience, a good base to combine with Zacatecas, Guanajuato or San Luis Potosí.
Founded in 1575 as a town on the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, it owes its name to the hot springs of the area. It grew as a resting and trading point between the mining regions of the north and the center of New Spain. In the 18th century the fair tied to the feast of San Marcos took hold, today the most celebrated in Mexico. It is also the birthplace of the engraver José Guadalupe Posada, creator of La Catrina. The full history is on our history page.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
In October 1914, in the Teatro Morelos of a provincial city, the delegates of Pancho Villa, Emiliano Zapata and Venustiano Carranza sat in the same seats to decide, amid fiery speeches and with pistols on their belts, who would govern Mexico. That neutral city, chosen precisely because nobody saw it as enemy territory, was Aguascalientes: the small town of hot springs which, three and a half centuries earlier, had been born to protect silver shipments in the desert. The history of Aguascalientes is that of a waypoint that ended up as one of Mexico's obligatory meeting places.
The founding of Aguascalientes is closely tied to the great axis that shaped the north of New Spain: the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, the route connecting Mexico City with the prosperous mining regions of the north, such as Zacatecas. The town of la Asunción de las Aguas Calientes was established in 1575 as a place to rest, defend and resupply along that route, in an area known for its hot springs, from which it took its name.
The context was the so-called Chichimeca War, the long conflict between the Spanish colonizers and the semi-nomadic peoples of the north. Towns like Aguascalientes served a strategic function of protecting the silver convoys and travelers from attack, as well as acting as centers of settlement and evangelization.
Little by little, the town grew thanks to its privileged position on the road, the fertility of its land and the availability of water. An agricultural and trading economy developed that supplied the mining regions and took advantage of the constant traffic of goods and people along the northern route.
One of the traditions that would define the identity of Aguascalientes was born in the colonial period: the fair tied to the feast of Saint Mark the Evangelist. What began as a religious festival and a market around the San Marcos neighborhood and church grew over time into a commercial, farming and livestock fair of major regional importance.
Through the 18th and 19th centuries, the fair took hold and gained fame. The Jardín de San Marcos, with its distinctive neoclassical balustrade, became the main stage for the celebrations. The fair gradually took in shows, games, exhibitions, bullfights and cockfights, drawing visitors from ever wider regions.
Over time, the Feria de San Marcos came to be considered the most important fair in Mexico, an event that every spring transforms the city and draws millions of people. That festive tradition, sprung from colonial and religious roots, is today the main mark of identity of Aguascalientes.
In the 19th century, Aguascalientes gave the world one of the most influential artists in Mexico's graphic history: José Guadalupe Posada, born in the city in 1852. A prolific engraver and illustrator, Posada worked for newspapers and popular broadsheets, creating thousands of images that portrayed the events and characters of his time with humor, social criticism and an unmistakable style.
His most celebrated contribution was the 'calaveras': skeleton engravings that satirized society, from politicians to popular figures, tied to the Mexican tradition of the Day of the Dead. Among them stands out 'La Calavera Garbancera', a female skeleton wearing an elegant hat, which mocked those who denied their origins to affect European refinement.
Years after Posada's death in 1913, the muralist Diego Rivera took up that figure, dressed her fully and named her 'La Catrina', turning her into the universal icon of Mexico's Day of the Dead. So a creation born of the genius of an engraver from Aguascalientes became one of the most recognizable symbols of Mexican culture in the world. The city honors his memory in the José Guadalupe Posada Museum.
In the thick of the Mexican Revolution, after the fall of the dictator Victoriano Huerta, the victorious factions clashed over the country's direction. Venustiano Carranza, head of the Constitutionalist Army, called a great meeting of military chiefs to settle their differences. Since Pancho Villa refused to travel to Mexico City and the Zapatistas distrusted Carranza, it was agreed to hold the assembly on neutral ground: Aguascalientes, a city that belonged to no faction exclusively.
And so, from 10 October to 9 November 1914, the Teatro Morelos in Aguascalientes hosted the Sovereign Revolutionary Convention. The delegates signed a flag as a symbol of commitment, listened to speeches by figures such as Álvaro Obregón and Felipe Ángeles, and on 27 October the representatives of Emiliano Zapata joined. The Convention declared itself sovereign, refused to recognize Carranza, elected General Eulalio Gutiérrez provisional president and named Francisco Villa head of the Conventionist Army.
Far from pacifying the country, the Convention split it in two: Conventionists (Villistas and Zapatistas) against Constitutionalists (Carrancistas). Villa and Zapata entered Mexico City together in December 1914 —the famous photo of the two of them in the presidential chair dates from those days— while Carranza fell back to Veracruz. The war between the factions would drag on at enormous human cost. Aguascalientes was marked forever as the stage of that failed attempt at unity: today the Teatro Morelos holds a museum with original photographs of those days.
Through the 19th and 20th centuries, Aguascalientes consolidated as the capital of the state of the same name, one of the smallest in Mexico. The arrival of the railway in the 19th century was a turning point: the city became an important rail hub, with large workshops that drove its industrial and demographic growth and gave rise to the distinctive Barrio de la Estación.
In the 20th century, and especially in recent decades, Aguascalientes saw remarkable industrial development, attracting investment particularly in the automotive sector, which made it one of the most prosperous cities in the country and one with the best quality of life. That economic dynamism sits alongside the preservation of its colonial heritage and its traditions.
Today Aguascalientes combines the modernity of an orderly, prosperous industrial city with the charm of its historic center, its traditional neighborhoods, its artistic legacy headed by Posada and, above all, the force of the Feria de San Marcos, which every year reaffirms its festive character and its place in the heart of the Mexican Bajío.