🇲🇽 Mexico · Central Mexico
Some towns look hand-painted, and Taxco is one of them. Climbing up a hillside of the Sierra Madre del Sur, in the state of Guerrero, it unfolds a maze of cobbled streets so steep they look like staircases, white houses with red tile roofs and, presiding over it all from the heart of town, the spectacular Churrigueresque facade of the church of Santa Prisca. Walking through Taxco means getting lost among alleys, hidden squares and views that suddenly open onto the white-and-red mass of the town and the mountains.
But if there's one word tied forever to the name of Taxco, it's 'silver'. The mining wealth of the area —dating back to colonial times— and, above all, the push the American William Spratling gave to jewelry design in the twentieth century turned Taxco into the world capital of silverwork. Today its streets are full of workshops and shops where silver is worked and sold in every form, and each year the town holds its famous Feria Nacional de la Plata.
This guide covers the essentials of Taxco with a practical, warm eye: how to get there from Mexico City or Cuernavaca, what to see in its colonial center, how to make the most of the silverwork, which museums and lookouts to visit, how to get around its slopes, where to eat and which nearby trips not to miss, such as the Cacahuamilpa caves. A Pueblo Mágico that wins you over with its beauty, its mining history and its craftwork.
The Taxco region was inhabited in pre-Hispanic times by peoples who paid tribute to the Mexica empire; its name comes from the Nahuatl 'Tlachco', usually linked to the ball game ('place of the ball game') or to a place to play. After the conquest, the Spanish took an interest in the area very early on when they discovered its rich deposits of silver and other metals: as early as the sixteenth century, Taxco was one of the first mining centers of New Spain, and figures tied to mining passed through here. The great boom came in the eighteenth century with José de la Borda, a wealthy miner (of French origin) who made an immense fortune from the Taxco mines and, in gratitude, funded the building of the dazzling church of Santa Prisca, one of the masterpieces of Mexican Churrigueresque baroque, raised around 1751-1758. After a period of mining decline, Taxco went through a second rebirth in the twentieth century thanks to silver, but this time through design: in the 1930s, the American William (Guillermo) Spratling settled in the town and founded silver jewelry workshops that revived and modernized the craft, giving work to local artisans and turning Taxco into a world reference for silverwork. Its colonial layout, its cobbled streets and its architecture earned it the Pueblo Mágico designation and protection as a monument. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The state of the southern Pacific, between the Sierra Madre and the sea: home of the silver of Taxco and of the Manila galleon at Acapulco, scene of the Congress of Chilpancingo of 1813 and of the 'Sentimientos de la Nación', a state that bears the name of the insurgent Vicente Guerrero and the land of the Afro-Mexican culture of the Costa Chica.
Read the history of Guerrero →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
The name Taxco comes from the Nahuatl 'Tlachco', a word most sources connect with the Mesoamerican ball game: it is usually translated as 'place of the ball game' or 'place where the ball game is played'. The root 'tlachtli' referred precisely to the court of that ritual game, so widespread in Mesoamerica, which suggests that the pre-Hispanic settlement in the area may have had a ball court or been associated with that activity.
With the arrival of the Spanish and the Castilianization of Indigenous place names, 'Tlachco' became, through phonetic adaptation, 'Taxco', the form still used today. It's the same kind of process that so many Mexican place names went through in passing from Nahuatl to Spanish.
The full official name of the municipality is 'Taxco de Alarcón', a surname added in honor of Juan Ruiz de Alarcón, the celebrated playwright of the Spanish Golden Age born in this region (at the start of the seventeenth century), one of the great figures of theater in the Spanish language. So Taxco's place name joins in its words the pre-Hispanic legacy of the ball game and a tribute to a local literary glory.
Before the Spanish arrived, the Taxco region was inhabited by peoples of the mountainous area of present-day Guerrero, part of the Mesoamerican networks of power and trade. During the height of the Mexica empire, the settlements of this region fell under its rule and were among the communities that paid tribute to Tenochtitlan.
Among the products the region contributed to the Mexica tribute, the sources mention goods typical of the area, and it's very likely that the mineral wealth of these mountains was already known and worked, at least in a rudimentary way. The presence of the name 'Tlachco' (tied to the ball game) points to an organized ceremonial and communal life in the area.
This integration into the Mesoamerican world and, above all, the mineral wealth of the subsoil would be decisive for Taxco's fate: when the Spanish reached the region, what immediately caught their interest was neither the ball game nor the tribute, but the promise of the precious metals hidden in those mountains, especially the silver that would make the town world-famous centuries later.
After the conquest of Mexico, the Spanish very quickly turned their attention to the mountains of Taxco once the existence of silver and other metal deposits became known. In the decades following the fall of Tenochtitlan, the region became one of the first mining camps of New Spain, drawing fortune seekers, miners and merchants.
Sixteenth-century mining gave rise to the colonial settlement and its first buildings. Figures connected with the viceroyalty's early mining passed through and operated in the area, and the workings that pulled silver from the mountain seams were established. Mining shaped the look of the town from the start: its layout adapted to the steep hillside where the mines and the houses were concentrated, producing the maze of streets that characterizes it today.
Taxco's relationship with silver would have its ups and downs over the centuries, with periods of great prosperity followed by phases in which the seams ran out and the town declined. But the mark was set for good: Taxco was born, as a colonial town, out of silver mining, and to silver it would owe both its greatest splendor in the eighteenth century and its rebirth in the twentieth.
Taxco's great moment of splendor came in the eighteenth century, and it is tied to one name: José de la Borda. This miner, of French origin (his original surname was Laborde), arrived in the region and, after years of work and the discovery of extraordinarily rich seams, amassed one of the greatest fortunes in New Spain. He is credited with the famous, perhaps apocryphal, line 'God gives to Borda, and Borda gives to God', which sums up his relationship between mining wealth and religious devotion.
As a token of gratitude for the fortune the Taxco mines had given him, José de la Borda funded the entire construction of the church of Santa Prisca, raised in an astonishingly short time (around 1751-1758). The result is one of the absolute masterpieces of Mexican Churrigueresque baroque: a lavishly carved pink stone facade, two tall towers, a tiled dome and a dazzling interior with altarpieces entirely covered in gold leaf and paintings by Miguel Cabrera.
Santa Prisca turned Taxco into a monumental town and left a record of the level of wealth that silver could generate. The Borda family also left its mark elsewhere (such as the Jardín Borda in Cuernavaca). That golden century of mining, however, would not last forever: after the boom, the richest seams gradually ran out and Taxco entered a long period of decline that stretched through much of the nineteenth century.
After the splendor of the eighteenth century, Taxco went through a long decline. The exhaustion of the most productive seams, together with the upheavals of the nineteenth century —the War of Independence, the internal conflicts— meant that mining lost momentum and the town was left as a beautiful colonial ensemble frozen in time, without the economic drive of the past. That very standstill, however, preserved its architecture and its layout, which reached the twentieth century intact.
Taxco's rebirth came in the 1930s, and again through silver, but by a new route: design and craftwork. The American William Spratling (in Mexico, Guillermo Spratling), an architect and artist, settled in Taxco and had a decisive idea: instead of merely extracting the silver, it had to be turned into jewelry and design objects. Spratling opened workshops, trained local artisans and combined the silversmithing tradition with motifs and techniques inspired by pre-Hispanic and Mexican folk art.
The success was resounding. Spratling's designs and those of the workshops that grew up around him gave Taxco international fame and turned the town into Mexico's silverwork capital. Generations of silversmiths kept and developed the craft, and silver became the economic engine and the hallmark of the place. Spratling is remembered today with a museum that bears his name.
Today's Taxco lives largely off its beauty and its silver. Its exceptional colonial urban ensemble —the layout of cobbled streets, the white houses with red roofs, the church of Santa Prisca— is protected as heritage, and the town was added to the Pueblos Mágicos program of Mexico's Ministry of Tourism, a distinction that recognizes places with special attributes that make them unique.
Silverwork is still the economic and cultural heart of the place. The streets of the center are packed with workshops and shops, and every year the Feria Nacional de la Plata brings together the best artisans in competitions and exhibitions, keeping the tradition begun by Spratling alive and constantly renewed. Taxco's silver craftwork is exported and recognized worldwide.
Added to this is its rich religious and festive life —with very traditional celebrations, especially during Easter week— and tourism drawn by the combination of landscape, history and shopping. Well connected with Mexico City, Cuernavaca and Acapulco, and close to natural wonders such as the Grutas de Cacahuamilpa, Taxco has established itself as one of the best-loved and most visited colonial towns in Mexico: a place where silver, faith and stone come together in an unforgettable setting.