San Juan de los Lagos

Infobox City
official_name = San Juan de los Lagos
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map_caption = Location of San Juan de los Lagos in Jalisco
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subdivision_type = Country
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leader_title = Municipal president
leader_name = Alejandro de Anda Lozano (PAN)
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area_total_km2 = 874.47
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population_as_of = 2000
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population_total = 55.305
population_density_km2 = 63
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timezone = Central Standard Time
utc_offset = -6
timezone_DST = Central Daylight Time
utc_offset_DST = -5
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website = [http://www.sanjuandeloslagos.gob.mx/ www.sanjuandeloslagos.gob.mx]
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San Juan de los Lagos is a city and its surrounding municipality of the same name located in the northeastern part of the state of Jalisco in Mexico. The city serves as the municipal seat of the municipality. At the time of the census of 2005 the city had a population of 43,003 inhabitants, while the municipality had a population of 57,104. The municipality has an area of 874.47 km² (337.63 sq mi).

Overview

San Juan de los Lagos receives 4 million pilgrims per year who come to visit the downtown cathedral of Our Lady of San Juan de los Lagos and stay an average of 1.1 days. This keeps the 83 hotels with 760 rooms full to capacity on week-ends and national holidays, leaving many pilgrims to sleep on hostels, sidewalks, and town squares.

The 4 million pilgrims arrive to San Juan de los Lagos in a series of pedestrian, cyclist or horseback processions which take days, weeks or months to arrive to the second most visited cathedral in the nation. The city streets are also lined with pilgrims who cover a long distance on their knees with the help of relatives who extend cushions in their path up to the altar of the cathedral.

Most of the population of San Juan de los Lagos is associated in one form or another with the cathedral. The streets come alive every night when food vendors line the streets. Most week-ends the town squares are filled with live music and fire work displays, making San Juan de los Lagos also a popular destination from nearby towns and ranches.

Ancestry

Traditionally, the region of San Juan de los Lagos is also known for its inhabitants of French and Spanish ancestry with strong family and Roman Catholic values. Most young men work in the tourism industry or leave town to work in the United States, which leaves an unbalanced young female to male ratio. This has brings another kind of tourism, with men arriving from out of state and abroad in hopes of finding a "pretty girl with traditional family values. This is most evident during summer and Christmas time when cars with out of state and American license plates circulate down avenue Benigno Romo around to Independencia. Meanwhile, girls cover the route on foot or meet at the local cafes.

The ongoing increase in religious pilgrimages and the local's entrepreneurial spirit has had a visible impact on the local architecture. Old majestic homes from the turn of the 20th century along the streets of the downtown area are cleared to make way for bland, unremarkable hotels or worst, for unpaved parking lots. These provide an easy means of generating cash with low capital from the developers in the case of parking lots. Like many cities with high growth rate in Mexico, urban development has grown beyond anyone’s ability to adequately plan for infrastructure requirements, particularly water in this part of the country.

Also worthy noting is the growing number of distinguished ex-patriates who've have emigrated to the US. These now reside particularly in California and the Chicago metropolitan area. San Juan De Los Lagos is also known for its cajeta (viscous caramel also known as dulce de leche in the rest of Latin America), candies, embroidery, and milk by products.

ister Cities

* Burgos, Spain
* Moreno Valley, California, USA

References

* [http://www.inegi.gob.mx/est/contenidos/espanol/sistemas/conteo2005/localidad/iter/ Link to tables of population data from Census of 2005] INEGI: Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informática
* [http://www.e-local.gob.mx/wb2/ELOCAL/EMM_jalisco Jalisco] Enciclopedia de los Municipios de México

External links

* [http://www.sanjuandeloslagos.gob.mx/ Ayuntamiento de San Juan de los Lagos] Official website