Tequila, Jalisco

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**Agave Landscape and Ancient Industrial Facilities of Tequila**^a
**UNESCO World Heritage Site**

State Party	Mexico
Type	Cultural
Criteria	ii, iv, v, vi
Identification	#1209
Region^b	Latin America and the Caribbean
Inscription History
Formal Inscription:	2006 30th Session
a Name as officially inscribed on the WH List b As classified officially by UNESCO

Tequila is a municipality in the central part of the state of Jalisco, Mexico. The municipal seat is the city of Santiago de Tequila, generally called Tequila without further qualification. The city of Santiago de Tequila is located 50 km away from Guadalajara, Mexico's second largest city.

A famous version of mezcal made from agave bears this city's name, and a National Tequila Fair is organised locally from 29 November to 13 December each year.

1 Geography
2 History
3 World Heritage Site
4 Sister cities
5 External links

[edit] Geography

The municipality is located between 20°25'00 and 21°12'30 north, and between 103°36'00 and 104°03'30 west, covering 1,364 km². Its height above sea level ranges from 700 to 2900 metres. It borders on the states of Nayarit (to the northwest) and Zacatecas to the northeast, and with the Jalisco municipalities of San Martín de Bolaños, Ahualulco de Mercado, Teuchitlán, Amatitán, San Cristóbal de la Barranca, Zapopan, Hostotipaquillo, Magdalena, and San Juanito de Escobedo.

In the 2000 census, it reported a population of 35,502. Of these, 24,024 were living in the municipal seat. The municipality's other sizable settlements are El Salvador, San Martín de las Cañas, Santa Teresa, Potrero de los Rivera, and El Medineño.

[edit] History

Blue agave fields near Tequila.

The area had been long settled – by Chichimeca, Otomi, Toltec, and Nahua Native Americans – when conquistador Cristóbal de Oñate arrived in 1530. A group of Franciscans founded the town of Santiago de Tequila on 15 April 1530. The local indigenous people rebelled against their Spanish overlords in 1541, but this uprising was quelled before the end of the year.

The district's first tequila factory was established in 1600.

Another native uprising, under the leadership of one individual known as Máscara de Oro ("Golden Mask") took place in the early years of the 19th century but was duly put down by the governor of Nueva Galicia. A few years later, however, in the early months of the War of Independence, the town fell to a band of 200 insurgents under Rafael Pérez in November 1810.

Tequila was given the status of a town ("villa") within the newly independent republic on 27 March 1824. It was then elevated to city status on 9 January 1874.

[edit] World Heritage Site

A 34,658 ha area, stretching between the foothills of the Tequila Volcano and the deep valley of the Rio Grande River, is inscribed on the World Heritage List as "part of an expansive landscape of blue agave, shaped by the culture of the plant which has been used since the 16th century to produce tequila spirit and over at least 2,000 years to make fermented drinks and cloth. Within the landscape are working distilleries reflecting the growth in the international consumption of tequila in the 19th and 20th centuries".[1]

[edit] Sister cities

Tequila had two US communities: Cathedral City, California and La Quinta, California, both of the Coachella Valley in the sister cities program. Tequila send a few council members, business promoters and rotary club officials to Mexican Independence Day events in the US sister cities, each had 40 percent of Latino/Mexican American descent.