Torreón

Municipal seat

Coat of arms

Nickname(s): La Perla de La Laguna

Torreón

Location in Mexico

Coordinates: 25°32′21.66″N 103°26′55.08″W / 25.5393500°N 103.4486333°WCoordinates: 25°32′21.66″N 103°26′55.08″W / 25.5393500°N 103.4486333°W

Country

Mexico

Established

September 25, 1893

Declared city:

September 15, 1907

Government

• Mayor

Miguel Ángel Riquelme Solís (PRI) (2014–2017)

Elevation

1,120 m (3,670 ft)

Population (2010)

• Municipal seat

639,629

• Metro

1,215,993

Time zone

CST (UTC−6)

• Summer (DST)

CDT (UTC−5)

Area code(s)

871

Website

Official site

Torreón (Spanish pronunciation: [toreˈon]) is a city and seat of Torreón Municipality in the Mexican state of Coahuila. As of 2010, the city's population was 608,836 with 639,629 in the municipality. The metropolitan population, including Matamoros Municipality, and Gómez Palacio Municipality and Lerdo Municipality in adjacent Durango, was 1,215,993. It is the ninth-biggest metropolitan area in the country and is one of Mexico's most important economic and industrial centers. Torreón is served by Francisco Sarabia International Airport, an airport with flights to several cities in Mexico and the United States.

According to archaeological findings, the area of Torreón was populated around the 10th millennium BC.

The first Spanish mission arrived in 1566, led by Fr. Pedro Espinareda. However, the city developed only in the independent Mexican era, around a Torreón ("Big Tower") built to monitor Río Nazas's floods, in conjunction with the creation of a railroad connecting to the US border city of El Paso, which gave an economic boom to the city and therefore a population boom as well. The population grew from 200 in 1892 to 34,000 in 1910. Torreón received city status in 1907.

During the Mexican Revolution, the city was taken more than once; the most prominent character ever to take the city was the revolutionary general Pancho Villa. It was also the location of the Torreón massacre, where 303 Chinese immigrants were killed by the revolutionaries over a ten-hour period. During the revolution, Torreon was also the site to an important convention which led to a deal between the insurrected armies.

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Wikipedia