Layout of Guadalajara
Guadalajara was moved three times before it was settled for good in the Atemajac valley on 14 February 1542, and the grid laid out then still runs the centro histórico. Four plazas surround the cathedral in a cross: Plaza de Armas to the south, Plaza de la Liberación to the east, the Rotonda de los Jaliscienses Ilustres to the north and Plaza Guadalajara to the west. The cathedral itself was begun in 1561 and consecrated in 1618; its twin yellow-tiled neo-Gothic spires date from 1854, after an earthquake brought the originals down. East of it, Plaza Tapatía runs half a kilometre to the Hospicio Cabañas, a neoclassical orphanage completed in 1810 and inscribed by UNESCO in 1997 for the José Clemente Orozco murals painted in its chapel between 1936 and 1939. The Teatro Degollado (1866) and the covered Mercado Libertad, better known as San Juan de Dios and one of the largest indoor markets in Latin America, stand at either end of the same axis.
Two roads set the frame. Calzada Independencia runs north–south over the buried course of the San Juan de Dios river and separates the older, poorer east of the city from the west. The Avenida Juárez–Vallarta axis runs west from the centre, passes the Expiatorio and the university, crosses the Minerva roundabout with its 1956 bronze and the Arcos Vallarta of 1942, and carries on to the Periférico ring road. Avenida Chapultepec, the cross street, is the spine of Colonia Americana, the porfirian district of 1900s villas that now holds most of the city's bars and cafés. Avenida López Mateos runs south-west towards the airport road and the newer suburbs.
The city has three light-rail lines. Lines 1 and 2 opened in 1989 and 1994 under Calzada Independencia and Avenida Javier Mina; Line 3, opened in September 2020, runs 21 km diagonally from Zapopan through the centre to Tlaquepaque and is the line most useful to visitors. The Nueva Central Camionera, for long-distance buses, is 10 km south-east in Tlaquepaque; the Antigua Central, near the centre off Calzada Independencia, keeps the short routes to Chapala, Tequila and the towns within Jalisco. Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla International (GDL) lies 17 km south-east on the Chapala road.
Distances from Guadalajara
| Place | km | Time | How |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tlaquepaque | 8 | 25 min | Light rail Line 3, Hwy 44 |
| Guadalajara airport (GDL) | 17 | 30 min | Hwy 23, taxi or airport bus |
| Chapala and Ajijic | 50 | 50 min | Hwy 23/44, bus from Antigua Central |
| Tequila | 60 | 1 h | Hwy 15D, tourist train |
| Colima | 220 | 2 h 30 | Hwy 54D |
| León | 230 | 2 h 45 | Hwy 80D/45D |
| Manzanillo | 310 | 3 h 30 | Hwy 54D to the port |
| Morelia | 300 | 4 h | Hwy 15D via Zamora |
| Puerto Vallarta | 340 | 5 h | Hwy 15D/68D then Hwy 200 |
| Mexico City | 540 | 6 h | Hwy 15D/45D, hourly buses |
Neighbourhoods and the metropolitan municipalities
Guadalajara the municipality is only the core of the city. Zapopan, north-west, is the largest metropolitan municipality of all, with 1,476,491 people in 2020 and holds both the wealthiest districts — Providencia, Puerta de Hierro, Andares — and the Basílica de Zapopan, whose small image of the Virgin has been carried back from the cathedral on 12 October each year since 1734 in a procession that draws well over a million people. Tlaquepaque (687,127) keeps a pedestrianised centre of galleries and ceramic workshops around El Parián, a covered arcade of cantinas built in 1878. Tonalá (569,913), a further 5 km east, is where most of the pottery is actually fired and holds street markets on Thursdays and Sundays. Tlajomulco de Zúñiga (727,750) covers the southern edge, including the airport.
Inside the city, Colonia Americana and the neighbouring Lafayette and Obrera districts hold the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century housing; Chapalita and Ciudad del Sol, laid out in the 1940s and 1950s around traffic circles, are the mid-century middle-class west. North of the centre the ground stops abruptly at the Barranca de Huentitán, a canyon up to 600 m deep cut by the Río Santiago, with a footpath from the Mirador Independencia down to the river. The Jalisco state map covers Lake Chapala, the tequila country and the coast in full; the airports map and the road map show how the city connects to the rest of the El Bajío and the Pacific Coast.
Questions about Guadalajara
Where is Guadalajara on the map of Mexico?
In the Atemajac valley of western Mexico at 20.67° N, 103.35° W, 1,566 m above sea level and about 540 km north-west of Mexico City. It is the capital of Jalisco and the centre of the second-largest metropolitan area in the country.
How big is Guadalajara?
The municipality of Guadalajara held 1,385,629 people at the 2020 census, but the built-up area runs across Zapopan, Tlaquepaque, Tonalá, Tlajomulco and several smaller municipalities for a metropolitan total of about 5.3 million — second only to Mexico City.
How far is Guadalajara from Tequila?
About 60 km north-west on Highway 15D, roughly one hour by car. The agave fields around the town, and the distilleries in it, were inscribed by UNESCO in 2006 as the Agave Landscape and Ancient Industrial Facilities of Tequila.
Where is Guadalajara airport?
Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla International (GDL) is about 17 km south-east of the centre on Highway 23, the road to Chapala. It is the third-busiest airport in Mexico and has direct services to some thirty US cities.
Is Guadalajara safe to visit?
The centre, Chapultepec, Zapopan, Tlaquepaque and the Chapala lakeside receive large numbers of visitors and the US State Department's Jalisco advisory singles them out as the areas where travel is not restricted, while advising against travel to the state's borders with Michoacán and Zacatecas. Check the current State Department advisory before you go.