Santa Catarina is a city in Santa Catarina Municipality in the state of

Nuevo León Nuevo León () is a state in the northeast region of Mexico. The state was named after the New Kingdom of León, an administrative territory from the Viceroyalty of New Spain, itself was named after the historic Spanish Kingdom of León. With a ...

, Mexico that is part of the Monterrey Metropolitan area.

History

The name of this city comes from the Catholic Saint Catherine of Alexandria. The city of Santa Catarina was not "founded" in a traditional manner; at the beginning, it was only a resting point for travelers between

Monterrey Monterrey ( , ) is the capital and largest city of the northeastern state of Nuevo León, Mexico, and the third largest city in Mexico behind Guadalajara and Mexico City. Located at the foothills of the Sierra Madre Oriental, the city is anchor ...

and Saltillo. The first recorded name was "Estancia de Santa Catarina" (Shelter of Santa Catarina). During the French Invasion of Mexico in the second half of the 19th century, the president Benito Juárez spent some days in Santa Catarina while traveling to Monterrey, and it was during this time that he elevated its status to Village. The category of Village was maintained until 1979 when the state government elevated its status to

City A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

Geography

Santa Catarina is located about 15 kilometers southwest of central Monterrey. As of the Mexican census of 2005, its population was 259,202 in the city and 259,896 in the municipality. The city and municipality both rank sixth in population in the state. The municipality has an area of 984.5 km² (380.12 sq mi) and includes numerous very small localities outside of the city itself. Most of the

National Park A national park is a nature park, natural park in use for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state dec ...

Cumbres of Monterrey (plural ), Spanish for 'Peak' or 'Summit', is an element in various place and other names, most often in the forms or . By itself, ''Cumbre'' or ''Cumbres'' may refer to: * ''Cumbre'', an insect genus, of skippers in the family Hesperiidae Pla ...

, including the

canyon A canyon (from ; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), or gorge, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosion, erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tenden ...

of La Huasteca is located within Santa Catarina. Also a certain portion of Cerro de las Mitras is located in Santa Catarina.

Climate

References

Link to tables of population data from Census of 2005
INEGI: Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informática
Nuevo León
Enciclopedia de los Municipios de México ;Specific

External links

Municipio de Santa Catarina
Official website
Defensors of the huasteca website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Santa Catarina, Nuevo Leon Populated places in Nuevo León Monterrey metropolitan area Populated places established in 1596