Geography
Querétaro covers 11,691 km² and is split into 18 municipalities. It is a small, oddly shaped territory that changes completely from one end to the other. The south and centre belong to the Bajío plain at 1,800–2,000 m: dry, flat, cut by the Río Querétaro and the Río San Juan, and largely built over with industrial parks and housing between the capital and San Juan del Río. Rainfall there is about 550 mm a year, and water is the limiting factor — the Acueducto II pipeline, opened in 2011, lifts water roughly 900 m from the Río Moctezuma to supply the capital.
North of Cadereyta the land rises into the Sierra Gorda, the southern end of the Sierra Madre Oriental, a karst landscape of pine, oak and cloud forest cut by canyons draining north-east into the Pánuco basin. The reserve created there in 1997 covers about 383,500 hectares, a third of the state, and ranges from 300 m in the Río Santa María canyon to about 3,100 m on the ridges. The highest ground in the state is Cerro El Zamorano, about 3,360 m, on the Guanajuato border in the west. Between the two halves sits the volcanic outlier of Peña de Bernal, a monolith rising roughly 350 m above the village of Bernal.
Main cities
Nearly half the state lives in the capital municipality, and about 70% lives in the continuous urban area formed by Querétaro, Corregidora and El Marqués. The aerospace cluster around the airport dates from 2006, when Bombardier began building fuselages at Colón; suppliers, a national aeronautical university and maintenance hangars followed, and the state now assembles aircraft parts, car components and appliances. San Juan del Río, 50 km south-east, is the second industrial centre and the gateway to the wine and cheese route through Ezequiel Montes and Tequisquiapan. Amealco and the southern uplands are the Otomí-speaking part of the state.
| Municipality | Population (2020) | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Querétaro | 1,049,777 | Capital; UNESCO historic centre |
| San Juan del Río | 300,151 | Second city, on MX-57D |
| Corregidora | 205,929 | Southern half of the capital metro |
| El Marqués | 190,038 | Industrial parks east of the capital |
| Tequisquiapan | 72,000 | Wine and cheese route, Pueblo Mágico |
| Cadereyta de Montes | 71,821 | Edge of the Sierra Gorda |
| Pedro Escobedo | 71,714 | Bajío farmland |
| Colón | 66,000 | Site of Querétaro airport (QRO) |
| Amealco de Bonfil | 62,197 | Otomí highlands in the south |
| Jalpan de Serra | 27,000 | Main town of the Sierra Gorda |
Neighbouring states
Querétaro is landlocked and touches five states. Guanajuato runs along the whole western side and shares the Bajío economy with it; San Luis Potosí closes the northern tip beyond Jalpan; Hidalgo lies to the east across the Río Moctezuma; State of Mexico takes the short south-eastern boundary near San Juan del Río; and Michoacán meets it in the south-west near Amealco. With Guanajuato and Aguascalientes it forms El Bajío, and its southern edge is 50 km from the outer ring of Central Mexico.
Getting there
Querétaro Intercontinental (QRO) is at Colón, about 30 km east of the capital, and has grown into one of the country’s main air-cargo hubs alongside passenger flights to Mexico City, Monterrey, Cancún, Tijuana and several US cities including Houston, Dallas–Fort Worth and Detroit. Del Bajío (BJX) near León is 175 km west and Mexico City (MEX) about 200 km south-east.
MX-57D is the main road, running from Mexico City through San Juan del Río and the capital and on north towards San Luis Potosí; it carries a large share of Mexico’s road freight to the United States. MX-45D branches west to Celaya, Irapuato and León, and MX-120 climbs north from Ezequiel Montes through Cadereyta and Jalpan into the Sierra Gorda, a slow mountain road of about 4 hours from the capital. Mexico City is 215 km and roughly 2 hours 30 minutes; Guanajuato is 200 km and about 2 hours 30 minutes. See the airports map and the road map.
Questions about Querétaro
Where is Querétaro on the map of Mexico?
In central Mexico, 215 km north-west of Mexico City on the MX-57D toll road. The state is wedge-shaped, widening from the south-east towards the Sierra Gorda in the north, and borders Guanajuato, San Luis Potosí, Hidalgo, State of Mexico and Michoacán.
Why is Querétaro growing so fast?
Its population rose from about 1.83 million in 2010 to 2,368,467 in 2020, an increase of roughly 30% that was exceeded only by Quintana Roo, driven by aerospace, car parts and logistics firms moving out of Mexico City. State output has grown faster than the national average for two decades.
What is the Sierra Gorda?
A limestone range covering the northern third of the state, protected since 1997 as a biosphere reserve of about 383,500 hectares. It holds five Franciscan mission churches built in the 1750s that were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2003.
Is Querétaro worth visiting?
The historic centre of Santiago de Querétaro has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1996 and includes a 1,280 m aqueduct of 74 arches finished in 1738. Peña de Bernal, one of the largest rock monoliths in the world, is 60 km east.