🇲🇽 Mexico · The North
Victoria de Durango —known simply as Durango— is a city of quarry stone, mountains and legend. Capital of the state of the same name, it spreads across a valley in northern Mexico at the foot of the Sierra Madre Occidental, with a colonial historic center of baroque churches, squares and mansions that speak of its mining and ranching past. It's a quiet, elegant city, with a temperate climate and wide skies, where you breathe history at every step.
But Durango has a very particular identity that sets it apart from the rest: for decades it was the great capital of western cinema. Its arid landscapes, its hills and its special light attracted Hollywood and Mexican cinema, which shot hundreds of westerns here with stars like John Wayne. In the surroundings several film sets survive, now turned into theme parks, where you can still walk the dusty streets of a Far West town. And it is, on top of that, the land of Pancho Villa, the legendary revolutionary born in the state.
This guide covers the essentials of Durango with a practical eye: what to see in its quarry-stone historic center, how to follow the trail of western cinema at the sets in the surroundings, where to ride the cable car to see the city from above, and how to venture into the mountains and the spectacular Espinazo del Diablo highway, one of the most impressive in the country, heading for Mazatlán and the Pacific.
The region was inhabited by northern peoples such as the Tepehuán and other groups. The city was founded on July 8, 1563 by the Basque conquistador Francisco de Ibarra, under the name Villa de Durango (in memory of the Basque town of Durango, in Spain), as the seat of what was then the province of Nueva Vizcaya, the enormous territory of the northern viceroyalty. During the colonial period it grew tied to mining (especially silver and the famous Cerro del Mercado, an iron deposit) and to ranching, and its cathedral and baroque churches were raised. It was also the episcopal seat of a vast bishopric. After independence, Durango became a state and a state capital. The state was the cradle of Pancho Villa (Doroteo Arango), one of the great figures of the Mexican Revolution, and it took part in that movement. In the 20th century, Durango won worldwide fame as the stage of western cinema: from the 1950s and for decades afterward, its arid landscapes and its light attracted Hollywood and Mexican productions, which shot hundreds of westerns on sets built in the surroundings. The city consolidated itself as the administrative, ranching, mining and forestry center of the north. Today its historic center is recognized heritage and combines its colonial, revolutionary and cinematic legacy. The full history is on our history page.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
On the edge of the city rises a hill that is no ordinary hill: it's a mountain of iron. The Cerro del Mercado, a mass of iron ore so pure and so colossal that it ranks among the largest deposits of its kind in the world, was for centuries a promise of wealth that drew colonizers, fed the Mexican steel industry and, according to local legend, made more than one conquistador believe he had found a mountain of silver. That prodigious geology explains much of why Durango exists where it does. But long before the first Spaniard arrived to look at that hill with greed, the valley already had owners.
Before the arrival of the Spanish, the valley where Durango stands today and the surrounding region were inhabited by various peoples of northern Mexico, among them the Tepehuán, along with other groups from the area. They were societies adapted to a semi-arid environment, between the valley and the foothills of the Sierra Madre Occidental, who lived from farming, hunting and gathering.
The great industrial exploitation of the Cerro del Mercado would come much later, already in the 19th and 20th centuries, but from early on its presence anchored the region in a mining vocation —iron, but also the silver that abounded throughout Nueva Vizcaya— that would define its economy for centuries.
The relationship between the native peoples and the colonizers was, as in much of the north, conflictive and drawn out, with resistance and rebellions throughout the colonial period. The region was folded into the enormous, rugged province of Nueva Vizcaya, a frontier of mines, cattle haciendas and missions in permanent tension with the nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples of the north.
The city was founded on July 8, 1563 by the Basque conquistador Francisco de Ibarra, one of the great figures of the Spanish expansion into the north of New Spain. Ibarra, who explored and colonized vast northern territories in search of mines, established here the Villa de Durango, giving it that name in memory of the town of Durango, in the Basque Country, his land of origin.
The new town was conceived as the seat of Nueva Vizcaya, the enormous territory covering much of what is now north-central Mexico (today's Durango, Chihuahua and neighboring areas). Its location, in a fertile, well-connected valley and close to mineral resources, made it grow as the administrative, commercial and religious center of the region. In time it became the seat of a vast bishopric, which reinforced its importance.
During the colonial period, Durango developed to the rhythm of silver mining and ranching, and its main religious and civil buildings went up, among them the cathedral. Its status as capital of Nueva Vizcaya kept it as one of the most important centers of the northern viceroyalty for centuries, in a frontier region marked by conflicts with the indigenous peoples.
Through the colonial centuries, Durango consolidated itself as the great center of the north-central viceroyalty. Its economy rested on mining —especially the silver of the nearby districts— and on extensive ranching, favored by the region's wide valleys. The cattle and farming haciendas, some of them enormous, shaped the social and economic landscape, and laid the foundations of the ranching and cowboy tradition that characterizes the state.
As capital of Nueva Vizcaya and seat of an extensive bishopric covering an immense territory, Durango was also an important religious and administrative center. To that status it owes the construction of its cathedral —carried out across the 17th and 18th centuries after fires and rebuildings— and of the numerous churches and convents that still distinguish its historic center today. The city filled with quarry-stone mansions belonging to the most prosperous mining and ranching families.
Life on this northern frontier was not without difficulty: the conflicts with the nomadic peoples, the enormous distances and the harshness of the semi-arid climate conditioned its development. Even so, Durango kept its central role in the north throughout the colonial period, forging an identity as a stately, Catholic, mining and ranching city that would outlast independence.
After Mexican independence was completed in 1821, the old province of Nueva Vizcaya was divided and Durango was constituted as a state of the Mexican federation, with the city of Durango as its capital. The city would later receive the full name of Victoria de Durango, in honor of Guadalupe Victoria, the first president of Mexico, a native of the state itself.
The 19th century was, as in much of the country, a period of political instability, with the struggles between liberals and conservatives and the effects of the various national wars. The region kept its mining and ranching character, and remained a frontier marked by conflicts with the indigenous peoples of the north.
The state of Durango contributes to the national story one of its most legendary figures: Francisco 'Pancho' Villa (Doroteo Arango), born in the state and turned into one of the great caudillos of the Mexican Revolution that began in 1910. Although his great theater of operations was Chihuahua, his Durango origin is a matter of regional pride, and the city keeps a Museo Francisco Villa dedicated to him and to the Revolution. The region lived through, like all of the north, the convulsive years of the revolutionary movement.
The most singular chapter in Durango's modern history began in the mid-20th century, when the city and its surroundings became one of the world's great stages for western cinema. From the 1950s on, Hollywood and Mexican production companies discovered that the arid landscapes, the hills, the wide skies and the special light of the region were ideal for recreating the American Far West, with the advantage of lower costs.
For decades hundreds of western films were shot in Durango, many with big international stars, among them John Wayne, one of the icons of the genre, who filmed several pictures in the region. Sets recreating western towns were built for the shoots, with their dusty streets, saloons, banks and churches. Some of those sets, like Villa del Oeste and Chupaderos, survive today, turned into theme parks and tourist attractions.
This intense film activity gave Durango the nickname of the 'land of cinema' and became a hallmark of the city's identity. Although the golden age of the western is behind us, the legacy stays alive in the visitable sets, in the film museum in the historic center and in the local pride at having been the stage of so many films. It's a trait that makes Durango a different destination from any other colonial city in the north.
In recent decades, Durango consolidated itself as an administrative, ranching, mining and forestry center of northern Mexico, and as the capital of a state of great size and geographic diversity, running from semi-arid valleys to high forested mountains. The city looked after and restored its quarry-stone historic center, betting on cultural tourism tied to its colonial heritage, its revolutionary legacy and, very characteristically, its history with cinema.
A recent milestone that transformed Durango's connection with the rest of the country was the modernization of the route to the Pacific. The historic and fearsome Espinazo del Diablo highway, which crossed the Sierra Madre Occidental toward Mazatlán between bends and chasms, was complemented by a modern toll highway opened in the 2010s, which includes the impressive Baluarte Bridge, one of the highest cable-stayed bridges in the world. This project drastically cut the travel time between Durango and the Pacific coast.
Today, Durango combines its identity as a stately colonial city with its side as capital of western cinema and with its role as the gateway to spectacular mountain landscapes, such as Mexiquillo Canyon. Its mix of historic heritage, nature and cinematic legacy makes it a destination with a personality of its own within northern Mexico.