Río Grande is a city in the Mexican state of

Zacatecas Zacatecas, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Zacatecas, is one of the Political divisions of Mexico, 31 states of Mexico. It is divided into Municipalities of Zacatecas, 58 municipalities and its capital city is Zacatecas City, Zacatec ...

. It serves as the municipal seat of the eponymous Río Grande Municipality. It is the fifth most populous city in the state, it is located in the north-central region of the state and has a population of 35,050 inhabitants, according to the 2020 Census. Río Grande is known as "El Granero de la Nación" for being one of the largest bean producers nationwide and also the largest trader of this legume in the country's predominant bean growing area.

History

Prior to the arrival of the Spanish, the Río Grande area was inhabited by

Chichimeca Chichimeca () is the name that the Nahua peoples of Mexico generically applied to nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples who were established in present-day Bajío region of Mexico. Chichimeca carried the same meaning as the Roman term "barbarian" tha ...

peoples such as the

Guachichil The Guachichil, Cuauchichil, or Quauhchichitl are an exonym for an Indigenous people of Mexico. Prior to European contact, they occupied the most extensive territory of all the Indigenous Chichimeca tribes in pre-Columbian central Mexico. The ...

and . Oral history holds that a Spanish settlement was founded at Río Grande on 18 August 1562. The town was recognized by the

Royal Audiencia of Guadalajara The Real Audiencia of Guadalajara (or Real Audiencia de Nueva Galicia), was the highest tribunal of the Spanish crown in what is today northern Mexico and the southwestern United States in the Viceroyalty of New Spain. It was created by royal decre ...

on 5 March 1689 under the name Santa Elena de Río Grande. Río Grande became the seat of its own namesake municipality, which was first incorporated as an ''

ayuntamiento ''Ayuntamiento'' ()In other languages of Spain: * (). * (). * (). is the general term for the town council, or ''cabildo'', of a municipality or, sometimes, as is often the case in Spain and Latin America, for the municipality itself. is mai ...

'' in the ''partido'' of Nieves in Zacatecas on 29 October 1833, and it became a free municipality on 19 August 1916.

Climate

According to the Köppen climate classification, the climate of Río Grande has a warm semi-arid (Steppe climate).

Demographics

Río Grande is one of the 58 localities in its namesake municipality, and it is one of the two that is classified as urban. It recorded a population of 35,050 in the 2020 census, up from 32,944 inhabitants in the 2010 Census.

Economy

The main economic activity in Río Grande is agriculture. Río Grande produces 51,337 tons of beans per year, which makes it the largest producer of this legume in the country, according to the Zacatecas INEGI Statistical Yearbook, surpassing

Santiago Ixcuintla Santiago de Ixcuintla is a municipality and a municipal seat in the western Mexico, Mexican state of Nayarit. The municipal population was 93,981 inhabitants (census of 2020) with the municipal seat having a population of 25,241. The area of the ...

, Nayarit, which ranks 2nd, producing 40,530 annual tons according to the Nayarit INEGI Statistical Yearbook. In the "Granero de la Nación" the area planted with beans, in 2008 was 70,450 hectares. According to 2005 data, the total area planted in crops was of 84,624 hectares.

References

{{Authority control Populated places in Zacatecas Populated places established in 1562 1562 establishments in the Spanish Empire