Puebla, Puebla

Encyclopedia : P : PU : PUE : Puebla, Puebla

Puebla is the name of both a state in Mexico and that state's capital city. This article is about the city. For the state, see: state of Puebla.

**Heroica Puebla de Zaragoza**

Motto: Angelis suis Deus mandavit de te ut custodiant te in omnibus viis tuis (And the Lord sent His angels to guard you in all your ways)
Foundation date	16 April 1531
Population city proper	1.485 million (2005) [link]
Metropolitan Area	2.109 million (2005) [link]
Altitude	2,160 metres
Latitude	19.05° N
Longitude	98.22° W
Telephone area code	+52 (country) 222 (city)
Airport name and code	Hermanos Serdán (PBC)
Mayor	Enrique Doger
_{Fonts: [INEGI], [Enciclopedia de los Municipios de México]}

The city of Puebla – known more formally as Heroica Puebla de Zaragoza or less formally as La Angelópolis or Puebla de los Ángeles – is the capital and largest city of the Mexican state of the same name, and the fourth largest city in Mexico, after Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey respectively.

Puebla is located in the Puebla Valley, surrounded by volcanoes and snow-capped mountains, slightly over 110 kilometres south-east of Mexico City. The city proper in 2005 had a population of 1.5 million people, while the metropolitan area had a population of 2.1 million.

Contents

1 Architecture
2 History
3 Economy
4 Education
5 Sports
6 Cuisine
7 Tourist attractions
8 Coat of arms
9 External links

Architecture

The historic center of the city still contains much Spanish Colonial architecture and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In recent years some of the historical buildings have been restored while others, however, are in a state of disrepair.

Of all the colonial buildings, the most impressive are without any doubt the Puebla Cathedral, which was built in a mixed neoclassical style; the gold-covered Rosario Chapel, in the nearby Iglesia de Santo Domingo is a dramatic example of Mexican baroque.

History

Malinche in the background

The city of Puebla was founded on April 16, 1531 as "La Puebla de los Ángeles". It was the first city in central Mexico founded by the Spanish conquistadors that was not built upon the ruins of a conquered Amerindian settlement. Its strategic location, half-way between the port of Veracruz and Mexico City, made it the second most important city during the colonial period. During the seventeenth century, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz lived in the city until her confrontation with the Bishop of Puebla.

Four decades after Mexico's independence, General Ignacio Zaragoza's army defeated French expeditionary forces near Puebla on May 5, 1862 in the Battle of Puebla. It was after this battle that the name of the city was changed to "Heróica Puebla de Zaragoza".

In the late nineteenth and early twentietn centuries a number of European immigrants came to the city, mainly from Germany, Italy and Spain. Today, the Colonia Humboldt neighborhood shows the influence of the local German population in its architecture, traditions and festivals like the local Oktoberfest, as well as in the town of Chipilo, now absorbed by the metropolitan area of the city, where people speak a dialect of Venetian known as the Chipilo Venetian dialect. The folkloric Mexican women's dress known as China Poblana was created in Puebla.

Economy

Puebla is an industrial city, mainly in the textile sector. Puebla is also home to the Mexican headquarters and main manufacturing site of Volkswagen, the last site to manufacture VW Beetles. Production of the Beetle was discontinued in late 2003. Other German and French manufacturing companies operate in the city, most of them outsourcers for Volkswagen.

Since 2003 Puebla has served as the interim headquarters of Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). It has submitted its candidacy to serve as the permanent headquarters if the FTAA is ever ratified.

Education

With more than 20 universities, Puebla is second only to Mexico City in the number of universities within its borders. Many of the top universities in the country are located in its metropolitan area, including the state university, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla (BUAP), the Universidad de las Américas, Puebla (UDLAP), and the Tecnológico de Monterrey (ITESM) Puebla Campus. Both UDLAP and ITESM are usually ranked among the highest in the country and both belong to the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) in the United States.

Other important academic institutions in Puebla include the Universidad Iberoamericana (UIA), Puebla Campus , Universidad Anáhuac Puebla Campus , and the Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla (UPAEP), a private university founded three decades ago by a group of seceding students and professors from the BUAP.

Sports

Puebla has two professional soccer teams, "La Franja" and "Lobos BUAP", both in the lower divisions of the league. The biggest soccer stadium in the city, "Cuauhtémoc", with a capacity of 45,000, was built in 1968 as a second soccer field for the 1968 Olympic Games. Matches for the 1970 and 1986 FIFA World Cups were also played in Cuauhtémoc Stadium.

Puebla has two professional baseball teams, the "Pericos" and "Tigres". Puebla, along with Monterrey, have popular baseball teams in the Mexican Baseball League.

Puebla, through the conurbated area of Cholula, has one professional American football team, the "Aztecas" of the Universidad de las Américas. The Aztecas have won the championship three times since the creation of the Mexican College Football Organization (ONEFA).

Cuisine

Puebla's food culture, known as Cocina Poblana, is popular all over Mexico. Puebla is considered the home of mole, a rich, spicy sauce containing chocolate, cinnamon and nuts, as well as different types of hot peppers. Served with chicken, mole has become the most renowned dish of Puebla's cuisine. Camote, sweet potatoes cooked in a stove are a traditional sweet. Rompope is a liquor based on egg yolk and vanilla, created many years ago by Puebla's nuns. Chiles en Nogada is a dish of stuffed chillies with meat, fruit, and topped with walnut sauce and pomegranate seeds; it's prepared only on special occasions. Other traditional sweets include the dulces de Santa Clara, crystallized fruits, and milk candies.

Tourist attractions

Puebla's Zócalo

Downtown street

Important locations include "La Capilla del Rosario" a chapel inlaid with gold, El Barrio del Artista ("The Artist's Neighborhood") where local arts are produced and the Centro y Zócalo (downtown) where the Cathedral of Puebla and the Palacio Municipal are located.

Red double-decker buses, known as "turibuses", give tourists an opportunity to enjoy the city's architecture, museums and monuments located at the historical downtown. One of the most famous museums in the city is the Amparo Museum. Another tourist attraction is the Africam Safari zoo, intended to recreate a safari experience.

Also, worth visiting is the pyramid of Cholula, a city within the metropolitan area of Puebla. Cholula was one of the most important cities under the Aztec empire, and its pyramid is the largest in the New World. The town, with a population of only 200,000 inhabitants, is said to boast a church for every day of the year, albeit some churches are quite small and even makeshift.

Finally, the Museo Nacional de los Ferrocarriles Mexicanos (National Museum of Mexican Railroads), located in the old Mexicano station, houses a collection of many unique specimens, including steam engines, passenger coaches, cabooses and diesel engines. Most notably it has a pair of PA1 diesel engines, the last specimens of their kind, with one of them still in working condition (the DH-19).

Pyramids in Cholula

Puebla is also the home a Automobile Museum, containing a collection of rare and classic, vintage cars. This collection also includes the "Popemobile" used by John Paul II on one of his visits to Mexico.

Located in the Casa de la Cultura, the Biblioteca Palafoxiana is a baroque-style library containing forty-two thousand volumes in a carved wood setting, collected by the Spanish bishop Juan de Palafox y Mendoza. The collection was donated to the Colegio de San Juan y San Pedro on September 5, 1646, by Palafox y Mendoza. This donation was formalized by a Royal Decree 1647 and by a Bull in 1648.

Coat of arms

The coat of arms has a round-heart form with five golden towers in its center, and a river below. Two angels are located over the towers, one to the left and one two the right. The letters KV make reference to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. Inscribed around the coat of arms is Psalms 90:2 in Latin: Angelis suis Deus mandavit de te ut custodiant te in omnibus viis tuis ("May God send His angels to keep you in all your ways."). The coat of arms makes reference to the legend of the foundation of the city. According to legend, angels descended, sketched the city and placed the heavy bells in the towers of the cathedral.

External links

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