Zona Río, Tijuana

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Zona Rio is the CBD area of Tijuana, Mexico.

Skyline of Tijuana at Zona Rio.

Zona Rio is located at a stategic point, at the north of the city, about 1 km from the U.S.-Mexico border, within the Centro borough, one of the main of Tijuana, and close to Tijuana International Airport.

Zona Rio, as CBD, is home for most of the commercial and financial businesses in the city, as well as the for the city's main health services. Banks, hotels, shopping squares, large public and private hospitals, restaurants, and many other businesses are based here, along Zona Rio's three main avenues.

Although being a relatively small CBD in comparison with other Mexican cities of a similar size, such as those of Monterrey and Guadalajara, Zona Rio has some notable skyscrapers, which due to the relative distance between them, are easily seem as very tall buildings or skyscrapers. Actually, the tallest buildings are the the two 32-storey twin towers that are home for the Plaza Aguacaliente and the Grand Hotel Tijuana, commonly known by locals as Las Torres (spanish for The Towers).

Las Torres, Tijuana's tallest skyscrapers, along Aguacaliente Boulevard

1 Name
2 Main Avenues
3 Notable landmarks and points of interest
4 Gallery
5 External Links

[edit] Name

View of north side of Zona Rio skyline along Paseo de los Heroes

Las Torres, by the day, on Aguacaliente Boulevard.

Skyscrapers along Aguacaliente Blvd.

Zona Rio is literally translated in English as River Zone, and this name is owned to the nearly-dried Tijuana River, which divides Zona Rio. The river is crossed by many bridges to allow traffic between the west side of Zona Rio, located at the west-center of the city, and the east of Zona Rio, located in the east-center of Tijuana.

[edit] Main Avenues

Further information: Tijuana#Local_transportation

[edit] Paseo de los Heroes Avenue

One of the most important avenues in the whole city of Tijuana, in English means Road of the Heroes. Along this avenue are located most of the financial, commercial, and touristic businesses of Zona Rio and the entire city. Insurance companies, numerous banks, such as BBVA-Bancomer and Banamex, and shopping squares, such as Plaza Río Tijuana, the largest mall in the city, have their headquarters in this avenue. Also, the cultural heart-point of the city, the Tijuana Cultural Center, is on Paseo de los Heroes. Two recently-built skyscrapers are exclusively occupied by two different hospitals and its corporations. Most of the high-end hotels of the entire city are located in Paseo de los Heroes avenue.

Paseo de los Heroes is also noted for its many monuments and sculptures, like the Monumento a la Raza (spanish for Monument to the Races), the Abraham Lincoln statue, the Simon Bolivar statue, the Cuauhtemoc statue, the Lazaro Cardenas statue, and others, to which the avenue largely owes its name, Road of the Heroes.

[edit] Tijuana CowParade 2008

During June 2008, Tijuana hosts the CowParade. Along with the also popular Revolucion Avenue, Paseo de los Heroes holds many of the artistic cows, in such popular places like the Monumento a la Raza and the Tijuana Cultural Center.

[edit] Gallery

A cow around the Monumento a la Raza		View of Cacho cow, in front of the Monumento a la Raza	View of El chico de la banca cow, at Tijuana Cultural Center
	View of Sueñame cow, in front of the Monumento a la Raza

[edit] Sanchez Taboada Boulevard

In contrast to Paseo de los Heroes or Aguacaliente Boulevard, this is not one of the main avenues of the whole city, but rather only of Zona Rio.

This avenue is the main gastronomical corridor of Zona Rio, offering the widest variety of gastronomy in the entire city. There are restaurants offering food from Thailand, Mongolia, Greece, Brazil or Israel, not to mention the typical Italian, Spanish, French, Argentinian, Chinese and U.S. foods, plus the wide-spread Japanese sushi. As regards of Mexican food, the common tacos, Baja-seafood, and the antojitos (spanish term for traditional Mexican food), they are found almost everywhere in the avenue.

[edit] Aguacaliente Boulevard

This is one of the most important and largest avenues in the city, together with Paseo de los Heroes, with both crossing nearly the entire city.

Also one of the main gastronomical corridors in the city, and a touristic and commercial avenue, Aguacaliente Boulevard may be a combination of both Paseo de los Heroes and Sanchez Taboada Boulevard, but with a characteristic of being the place where sports auditoriums and stadiums are located.

The Aguacaliente Hippodrome and Racetrack is located here. The Municipal Auditorium of Tijuana, home of both of Tijuana's basketball teams, and the Estadio Casas GeoCaliente Stadium, home of the city's newly formed soccer team.

The tallest buildings of Tijuana, Las Torres, are located here, along some other buildings and public hospitals.