Monterrey

Monterrey is the capital of Nuevo León, a city in northeastern Mexico at the foot of the Sierra Madre Oriental. Cerro de la Silla, a mountain with a saddle-shaped summit east of the city, appears on its coat of arms.

Diego de Montemayor founded the city in 1596 and named it after the Count of Monterrey, viceroy of New Spain. For a long time it was a small town of ranchers and traders on the northern frontier of New Spain and later of Mexico. Railways to Texas and to Mexico City arrived in the 1880s, and breweries, glassworks and foundries opened in the city. A steel mill opened in 1900, the first in Latin America, and Monterrey grew into an industrial city. In the 1940s business families of the city founded a private technical university that later opened campuses across Mexico.

Cemex, founded in Monterrey, makes cement and ready-mixed concrete in many countries. FEMSA, based in the city, runs the OXXO convenience stores and bottles Coca-Cola through Coca-Cola FEMSA. Heineken México brews Tecate and Carta Blanca at the Cuauhtémoc brewery, where the company began.

Parque Fundidora, laid out on the grounds of the old steel mill, keeps a blast furnace that has been turned into a museum of steel. The Macroplaza, a long square in the center, joins the government palace and the cathedral with fountains, gardens and an orange tower by Luis Barragán. Barrio Antiguo, the old quarter, keeps houses of the 18th and 19th centuries and fills with bars and music at night. The Santa Lucía Riverwalk, an artificial canal with boats and walkways, links the square with the park.