🇲🇽 Mexico · Central Mexico
A little over an hour from Mexico City, heading north, stands Pachuca, the capital of the state of Hidalgo, a city with a very particular personality. They call it 'la Bella Airosa' for the winds that constantly sweep its streets, boxed in between the hills of a sierra loaded with mining history. Because Pachuca is, above all, a silver city: its wealth came from underground, from the veins that for centuries drew miners from half the world.
That mining history left Pachuca an unexpected and fascinating legacy: the Cornish mark. In the 19th century miners came from Cornwall, in England, to work the region's mines, and with them came customs that took root for good. The tastiest is the 'paste', a turnover inherited from the Cornish pasty and turned into a culinary emblem of Hidalgo. They also left their mark on sport: this is where football entered Mexico. And the city still has its iconic Reloj Monumental, its colorful historic center and a notable cultural heritage.
This guide runs through the essentials of Pachuca in a practical, friendly way: how to get there from Mexico City, what to see in its historic center, how to get to know its mining and Cornish history, which museums and squares to visit, and how to use it as a base for Hidalgo's pueblos mágicos —Real del Monte, Mineral del Chico, Huasca de Ocampo— and natural wonders such as the basalt prisms. A less touristy destination, authentic and full of character.
Pachuca's origins are deeply tied to silver mining. Although the region was inhabited in pre-Hispanic times by peoples linked to the Mesoamerican world (the name 'Pachuca' comes from Nahuatl, with interpretations associating it with 'narrow place', 'narrow gate' or with the word for silver or metal), its great development came after the conquest, when the Spanish discovered the extremely rich silver veins of the Sierra de Pachuca, in the middle of the 16th century. The city and nearby Real del Monte became one of the most important mining districts in New Spain. It was here, according to tradition, that the so-called 'patio process' or amalgamation method for extracting silver was developed, attributed to Bartolomé de Medina in the 16th century, a key innovation for mining in the Americas. In the 19th century, mining in Pachuca and Real del Monte passed into the hands of English companies, which brought miners from Cornwall (the 'cornish'); with them came technology, customs, the paste and, famously, football, since the first football club in Mexico was founded in this region. Pachuca kept growing as a mining city and, when the state of Hidalgo was created in 1869, it became its capital. Through the 20th and 21st centuries it diversified its economy beyond mining, developed universities and cultural centers, and kept its historic heritage, its identity as 'la Bella Airosa' and its proud Cornish legacy. The full history is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The central state of silver mines and Toltec heritage: land of Tula and its Atlantes, of the Cornish miners who brought football and the 'paste', of the Prismas Basálticos and the grottoes of Tolantongo.
Read the history of Hidalgo →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
The name Pachuca comes from Nahuatl, although its exact meaning is open to several interpretations, which is common with many pre-Hispanic place names. One of the most widespread explanations links it to the idea of 'narrow place' or 'narrow gate', referring to the city's setting, boxed in between the hills of the sierra, at the entrance to a pass or ravine. Other readings connect it to words associated with silver or precious metal, which would fit the deep mining vocation of the place.
There are also interpretations that connect the name with roots relating to 'straw' or to a 'place of government' or of silver, depending on the different etymological proposals. The lack of a definitive consensus reflects how hard it is to reconstruct precisely the original meaning of many Nahuatl names, passed down and hispanicized over the centuries.
The city's full official name is 'Pachuca de Soto', the surname added in honor of Manuel Fernando Soto, a figure who pushed for the creation of the state of Hidalgo in the 19th century. So the place name joins the Nahuatl root to a tribute to a key figure in the political history of the state of which Pachuca is the capital. Whatever its precise meaning, the name evokes a place of mountains, silver and a pass between hills.
Before the conquest, the Pachuca region was inhabited by peoples belonging to the Mesoamerican world of the central highlands, in an area of transition between different groups. Its closeness to important cultures of the region —and, not far away, to the Toltec legacy of Tula, in the state of Hidalgo— places this land in a setting of rich pre-Hispanic history. In the time of the Mexica empire, the settlements of the area fell within its sphere of power and tribute.
The region was known and traveled through, but it was after the Spanish conquest that Pachuca took the leap that would define its destiny. The Spanish, hungry for precious metals, explored the mountains of central Mexico looking for deposits, and in the middle of the 16th century they discovered the extremely rich silver veins of the Sierra de Pachuca and of neighboring Real del Monte. That find changed everything.
From being just another point on the map, Pachuca became one of the great mining centers of New Spain. Silver drew settlers, miners, traders and adventurers, and gave rise to a prosperous mining district that would grow over the centuries. From then on, the history of Pachuca would be inseparable from the history of silver: out of the ground beneath these hills would come the wealth that shaped the city.
The discovery of silver made Pachuca and Real del Monte one of the most important and longest-lasting mining districts in all of the Americas. For centuries, enormous quantities of silver were taken from the depths of this sierra, enriching the Crown, the mine owners and the city itself, which grew to the rhythm of the ups and downs of mining.
A famous chapter of this story is the development, in Pachuca, of the so-called 'patio process' or amalgamation, a technique for processing silver ore using quicksilver (mercury). Its invention or refinement is traditionally attributed to Bartolomé de Medina around the middle of the 16th century, precisely in this region. The method, which spread big 'cakes' of mixed ore across open-air patios, revolutionized silver mining in the Americas by making it possible to process low-grade ore more efficiently, and it spread across the continent.
Mining shaped the life, the economy and even the landscape of Pachuca: the processing haciendas where the ore was treated, the mine entrances, the shafts and the harsh working conditions of the miners are an essential part of its memory. That activity, with its booms and its crises, was the engine of the city and the base on which everything else would be built, including the episode that would give Pachuca its most singular character: the arrival of the English.
The most singular and endearing chapter in the history of Pachuca and Real del Monte came in the 19th century, when the region's mining passed into the hands of English companies. With them came miners and technicians from Cornwall, in southwest England, a region with a long mining tradition. Those 'cornish' brought experience, technology (such as the steam engines used to drain the mines) and, above all, their customs, which took root in the region and last to this day.
The Cornish legacy left deep and delicious traces. The most famous is the paste: the English miners ate the 'Cornish pasty', a sealed, sturdy turnover they could carry underground; adapted with local ingredients, it became the paste, today a culinary emblem of Hidalgo. Another moving trace is the English Cemetery in Real del Monte, where the Cornish miners rest, with headstones that —according to tradition— face toward England.
But perhaps the most surprising legacy is a sporting one: it was the English of the region who introduced football to Mexico. The Pachuca Athletic Club, founded at the end of the 19th century by British miners, is considered the country's first football club, which gives Pachuca the proud title of 'cradle of Mexican football'. So out of the silver mines came, along with the wealth, a unique cultural legacy that mixes the English and the Mexican.
For much of the colonial and independent period, the territory of today's Hidalgo formed part of larger entities, tied to the State of Mexico. The economic importance of the mining region and local political ambitions drove, in the second half of the 19th century, the creation of a new state. So in 1869 the state of Hidalgo was established —named in honor of Miguel Hidalgo, the father of Independence— and Pachuca was designated its capital.
Figures such as Manuel Fernando Soto were key in the process of creating the state, which is why the city bears the official name 'Pachuca de Soto'. As the capital, Pachuca took on a new administrative and political role that added to its economic weight as a mining center, consolidating its growth and its regional importance.
The boom of the late 19th century and the start of the 20th left the city some of its best-loved monuments, such as the Reloj Monumental, inaugurated in 1910 for the centenary of Independence, a symbol of the pride and prosperity of Pachuca at the time. Being the capital drew institutions, public buildings and a richer urban life, establishing Pachuca as the political and administrative heart of Hidalgo.
Through the 20th century, mining in Pachuca and Real del Monte lost strength as the richest veins ran out and the economy changed, until mining stopped being the city's main engine. Pachuca then had to reinvent itself, diversifying its economy toward services, state administration, commerce, industry and education, with the growth of universities and research centers that gave it a new profile.
The city also bet on culture and on preserving its heritage. The old former convent of San Francisco was turned into a large cultural complex housing, among other institutions, the Fototeca Nacional, keeper of photographic collections of enormous value for the visual history of Mexico. To that you can add museums of mining, art and culture that tell the story of the region and its Cornish heritage, as well as urban initiatives such as the macromural in the Palmitas neighborhood.
Today, Pachuca combines its historic identity —'la Bella Airosa', the silver city, the cradle of Mexican football, the land of the paste— with the energy of a modern university capital. And it has established itself as the gateway to a Hidalgo full of attractions: its mining pueblos mágicos (Real del Monte, Mineral del Chico), the country's first Pueblo Mágico (Huasca de Ocampo), natural wonders such as the Basalt Prisms and a heritage that mixes, as few places in Mexico do, the pre-Hispanic, the colonial and the English.