ciudad jurez

Ciudad Jurez (2000 population 1,142,354) is a city in Chihuahua, Mexico, across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, USA. It is the major port of entry and transportation center of north central Mexico and the fifth largest city in Mxico. It is a growing industrial center, with numerous maquiladoras (assembly plants). Jurez was founded as El Paso del Norte (the pass of the north) in 1659 by Spanish explorers, seeking a route through the southern Rocky Mountains. The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo established the Rio Grande as the border between Mexico and the United States, separating settlements on the north bank of the river from the rest of the town. During the French Intervention in Mexico (1862–1867), El Paso del Norte served as a temporary capital of Benito Jurez's republican forces. In 1888, El Paso del Norte was renamed in honor of Jurez. Jurez again served as a provisional Mexican capital during the initial phase of the Mexican Revolution, when forces loyal to opposition candidate Francisco I. Madero, led by Pancho Villa, seized the city (20 November 1910). The scene of intense fighting for a decade, Jurez recovered during the United States Prohibition era (1919-1933) as an entertainment center. Jurez continued to attract tourists from the southwest USA during the 1940s and 1950s, with its bars, nightclubs, bullfighting, and shopping. Jurez has grown substantially in recent decades, and now has extensive areas of slum housing. Jurez has gained further notoriety as a major center of narcotics trafficking, and for several hundred unsolved murders of young women since the early 1990s. As a result, Jurez has declined as a center of tourism, and now functions mostly as a industrial and commercial center.

Ciudad Jurez

See also