¿Is there a &quot;ciudad&quot; in Mexico without a &quot;catedral&quot;?

¿Is there a "ciudad" in Mexico without a "catedral"?

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¿Is there a "ciudad" in Mexico without a "catedral"?
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(This post was edited by DavidMcL on Nov 8, 2011, 10:57 PM)

Nov 8, 2011, 2:55 PM

Post #2 of 25 (1834 views)

Re: [arbon] List of dangerous states

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Yes, there are many eg Zitácuaro, Michoacán.

Nov 8, 2011, 3:00 PM

Post #3 of 25 (1828 views)

Re: [arbon] List of dangerous states

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"¿Is there a "ciudad" in Mexico without a "catedral"?
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arbon, It's doubtful, but I sure don't know. I doubt if it's part of the criteria (since the Revolution) for awarding the title "Ciudad" to a city.

Tony, But Zitácuaro was never awarded the title "Ciudad", so it doesn't count.

(This post was edited by mazbook1 on Nov 8, 2011, 3:09 PM)

Nov 8, 2011, 4:32 PM

Post #4 of 25 (1807 views)

Re: [mazbook1] List of dangerous states

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Arbon asked about "ciudad" not "Ciudad"
For full list of cathedrals in Mexico, see:
http://www.gcatholic.com/...ches/data/cathMX.htm

(This post was edited by tonyburton on Nov 8, 2011, 4:34 PM)

Nov 8, 2011, 4:52 PM

Post #5 of 25 (1798 views)

Ciudades that lack a cathedral

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List of Ciudades that lack a cathedral :
1. Ciudad Hildago (Michoacán)
2. Ciudad Lerdo, Dgo
3.

Over to others...

(This post was edited by Rolly on Nov 8, 2011, 5:06 PM)

Nov 8, 2011, 5:01 PM

Post #6 of 25 (1793 views)

Re: [mazbook1] List of dangerous states

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My apologies, I started writing this post before Tony posted his 2 posts (got pulled off onto 2 other things in the meantime).

Before Tony posted, I was wondering the same thing as arbon. Cathedra = seat or chair => the Bishop's (or Arch-Bishop's) seat/throne, meaning the only official "cities" in Europe for over 1,200 years had Bishops or Arch-Bishops, who are seated in Cathedrals - where a Cathedral is not always a grand structure, but just a church with a Bishop or Arch-Bishop and his chair.

Since the city designations across Mexico generally much pre-date the Revolution, they follow the very old European/Spanish traditions, and only recent/modern cities would likely rise from legislative fiat.

Tony: Are you confident that there have been no Bishops or Arch-Bishops in residence, in the past, in the city(s) on your list?
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(This post was edited by YucaLandia on Nov 8, 2011, 5:09 PM)

Nov 8, 2011, 5:38 PM

Post #7 of 25 (1775 views)

Re: [YucaLandia] List of dangerous states

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as always, quietly confident until proved wrong... actually, you make a good point - the clue to finding Ciudades without cathedrals in Mexico might well be to go for the seriously old cities such as Cd. Hidalgo, and no, I'm not 100% confident that it NEVER had a bishop since back in the 16th century, bishoprics moved with great regularity - eg even smallish places such as Tzintzuntzán (Mich) housed a Bishop for while (and it is neither a city nor a Ciudad).

(This post was edited by tonyburton on Nov 8, 2011, 5:42 PM)

Nov 8, 2011, 6:33 PM

Post #8 of 25 (1758 views)

Re: [tonyburton] List of dangerous states

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Good Stuff !

History sure can be fun, especially when a few individuals flex their muscles to spin things their way.
Having a Bishop or Arch-Bishop in your town was a big deal in the past - bringing prestige to the area, so, some past Bishops and A-Bishops would barter the location of their seat with various power local brokers for buildings, semanaries, universities etc. It sometimes came with a downside though, since the Bishops and A-Bishops got to levy fairly stiff taxes in many areas.

If one area depended on some industry for its economy, and that industry crashed due to a drought, or some new technology developing in a competing town, then the Bishop or A-Bishop who started out with a rich flock and sweet tax revenues could find themselves temporarily paupered - and in search of a new town to convert into a City / Ciudad.

For those with doubts, check out the altars in long-term mining towns.
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Nov 8, 2011, 6:47 PM

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Re: [YucaLandia] List of dangerous states

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For sure, Ciudad Obregón in Sonora postdates the Revolution, and as far as European/Spanish naming goes, Ciudad Juárez certainly never got its name until after Juárez' death (long after the Reforma). I'm fairly certain that Ciudad Juárez has a catedral that goes back to when it was El Paso del Norte under the Spanish and before at least 1848, but I have no idea whether Ciudad Obregón has a catedral or not. There may be other Ciudades that postdate either the Reforma or the Revolution.

Then there is Ciudad Constitución in BCS, Ciuda Acuña in Coahuila, Ciudad Camargo in Chihuahua, Ciudad Díaz Ordaz in Tamaulipas , Ciudad Frontera in Coahuila, Ciudad Guerrero in Chihuahua, Ciudad Guerrero in Tamaulipas, Ciudad Lerdo in Durango, Ciudad Madero in Tamaulipas, Ciudad Mante in Tamaulipas, Ciudad Pemex in Tabasco and Ciudad Sahagún in Hidalgo. All became Ciudades after the Reforma or after the Revolution, and that is more than half of all the Ciudades in México, so it is incorrect to say, "Since the city designations across Mexico generally much pre-date the Revolution…". There may actually be more, but I ran out of research time. I don't know how many of them have catedrales, but for sure there are several of them.

(This post was edited by mazbook1 on Nov 8, 2011, 6:51 PM)

Nov 8, 2011, 8:22 PM

Post #10 of 25 (1730 views)

Re: [mazbook1] List of dangerous states

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I think I may have confused things by my choice of city/ciudad wording:
"Since the city designations across Mexico generally much pre-date the Revolution, they follow the very old European/Spanish traditions, and only recent/modern cities would likely rise from legislative fiat."

Following the old European naming convention, which takes what I said in context of the post, and in the context of English (the language of the post): I was thinking city = officially called a city in various records, which is not the same as formally listing "Ciudad" in the name. e.g. Merida has officially been called a city since the time of its first bishop even though it is not called Ciudad Mérida.

Your list of capiital "C" Ciudades make an interesting point about legislative fiat naming of cities versus the older convention of villa, pueblo, ciudad, etc (think hamlet, village, town, & city in English parlance) based upon the level of hermano/sacerdote/obispo/arzobispo church official, and then consider the additional old designations villa real and ciudad real - where the "ciudad" part of the names were dropped - but they were still ciudades: This means that most of the "cities" in Mexico do seem to predate the Revolution. - and as Mazbook points out, many of the modern cities with Ciudad
in their names are by legislative fiat - not based on the Catholic Church's choices.

Saying it in a different way: I think that most old cities in Mexico did not have "Ciudad" in their commonly used names, and that a Mexican city did not and does not necessarily have the word "ciudad" in it's name to be the legal entity of being a city/ciudad. I have not made an actual survey of all pre-Revolution cities in Mexico, but the convention I described fits the cities in our area.

Mi suegra y mi esposa and I have discussed this in the past, and their understandings of pre-Revolution Mexican place names and legal status, fit the level-of-church & level-of-church-official related scheme I described. They are both Catholics, which may bias how they understood what they were taught in school and what they've seen in the 5 Mexican states where they've lived.
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(This post was edited by YucaLandia on Nov 8, 2011, 8:39 PM)

richmx2

Nov 9, 2011, 8:52 AM

Post #11 of 25 (1665 views)

Re: [tonyburton] List of dangerous states

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Cd. Juarez was not a cathedral city until 1957. On the other hand Guadalajara never had Cd. in itsname, though Guadalajara has been a diocese since 1548, and Puebla, although it had a cathedral and an archbishop of Tlaxcala in residence, was a "Suffragan Diocese" of the Archdiocese of Tlaxcala until 1903. Tlaxcala since 1959 has only been a "Suffragan Diocese" of Puebla.

Tlaxcala — which was never Cd. Tlaxcala — is the oldest diocese in North America (1525), but didn't have a resident bishop until later (the early bishops lived in Seville) or in Mexico (City), the latter becoming the ARCHDIOCESE of Mexico (Archidioecesis Mexicanus) after 1546.

While you see "Ciudad de México" on documents and some older public monuments, and in the names of a few bureaucratic organizations dealing with the urban core of the Federal District, "Ciudad" hasn't been part of the federal district's name in a very long time.

I'm not sure, but I think "City" for a cathedral town is just an English custom and nothing particularly relevant to Spanish or Latin American geographical naming conventions.

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Nov 9, 2011, 9:08 AM

Post #12 of 25 (1654 views)

Re: [richmx2] List of dangerous states

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"City" for a cathedral town is just an English custom and nothing particularly relevant to Spanish or Latin American geographical naming conventions.

Exactly! Arbon's original question betrays his origins!
In the UK some cathedral cities (eg Ely, Ripon) are much smaller than mid-sized cathedral-lacking towns. It used to be said that a better indication of a city (from a geographical perspective) was whether or not there was a Woolworth's (F.W. Woolworth) store.

[To bring this post back to Mexico, it has to be said that there have never been many Woolworth's stores in Mexico]

[Apparently, quoting from http://www.freak-search.com/en/thread/5578341/ot_1st_day_of_autumn/7:
"In England & Wales the definition of a city is very precise; nothing to do with a cathedral and everything to do with a royal charter. Blackburn has a cathedral but isn't a city; Preston is a city but has no cathedral (there are lots of these, probably Nottingham is the biggest)."]

(This post was edited by tonyburton on Nov 9, 2011, 9:14 AM)

Nov 9, 2011, 12:39 PM

Post #13 of 25 (1614 views)

Re: [YucaLandia] List of dangerous states

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The confusion of what is a ciudad and what isn't is that "Ciudades" have Ciudad (always capitalized) legally as part of their name. All the others that are informally called ciudad, have the social convention name as "ciudad de Mérida", "ciudad de Mazatlán", "ciudad de México", etc. This is a purely a social convention similar to when a married woman tacks "de whatever" (where the 'whatever' is her husband's apellido paterno) after her apellido paterno instead of the legal apellido materno. In the case of the "ciudades de", the Ciudad part may or may not be capitalized, but they are just a social convention regardless of capitalization.

As norteño pointed out, even the legal "Ciudades" are not chartered or incorporated cities as in the U.S. Here in México they have no specific boundaries and are governed solely by the elected government of the municipio they are in. The only "boundaries" they have are the boundaries of the outer colonias (barrios, fraccionamientos) making up the contiguous urban area of the municipio, which, of course, are subject to change as the urban area grows.

(This post was edited by mazbook1 on Nov 9, 2011, 12:41 PM)

arbon

Nov 9, 2011, 12:51 PM

Post #14 of 25 (1611 views)

Re: [tonyburton] List of dangerous states

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"In 1538, the Spanish established their settlement in Pátzcuaro, founding the Diocese of Michoacán with Vasco de Quiroga as first bishop. Pátzcuaro was made the capital of the new Spanish province. The 1540s saw a repopulation of the area with Bishop Vasco de Quiroga convincing many of the Indians to return and brought in a number of Spanish families. For this Vasco de Quiroga is considered to be the founder of modern Pátzcuaro. He renamed the city as the City of Michoacán, which was confirmed by royal decree in 1553, with Pátzcuaro receiving its current coat of arms. The cathedral was constructed over the temple dedicated to the goddess Cueráppari. Vasco de Quiroga wanted to build an ambitious cathedral here, with five naves, but this was declared unacceptable by the Spanish crown and only one of the naves was built. It remains to this day. Pátzcuaro remained the largest city in the Spanish province until about ten years after Vasco de Quiroga’s death. Viceregal authorities then decided to change the capital to the recently founded Valladolid (today Morelia) in 1575. Ecclesiastical authorities moved the diocese and the College of San Nicolás, established by Vasco de Quiroga, to Valladolid as well.
Pátzcuaro remained the economic and spiritual center of the Lake Pátzcuaro region with life dominated by Franciscan and Augustinian friars. "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A1tzcuaro
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Nov 9, 2011, 1:42 PM

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Re: [arbon] List of dangerous states

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and your point is?

Nov 9, 2011, 2:24 PM

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Re: [mazbook1] List of dangerous states

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It is easy to find excpetions to the idea that "even the legal "Ciudades" are not chartered or incorporated cities".
Mexico does indeed have legally-designated cities.

eg:
"El poblado de Santiago Papasquiaro fue reconocido como villa en 1786 y elevado como ciudad hasta 1979."
[Source: http://www.conaculta.gob.mx/turismocultural/guias/guia2_4.php]

"Por esa época, Matehuala recibirá un poderoso impulso alcanzando la designación de ciudad mediante el Decreto 12, dictado durante la gobernatura de Jesús Díaz de León, el 12 de diciembre de 1871. Tres años después, el 29 de..."
[Source: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matehuala]

Nov 9, 2011, 3:08 PM

Post #17 of 25 (1562 views)

Re: [tonyburton] List of dangerous states

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Tony, Yes, you might call being elevated to Ciudad being something similar to incorporation, but if norteño is correct, and I believe he is, that doesn't mean that the new Ciudad is self-governing or has specific boundaries like an incorporated or chartered city in the English/U.S. sense. For a town or city to be able to legally add Ciudad at the front of their name, they MUST be legally-designated. It is just an honor. Particularly some of the towns legally designated Ciudad that received that honor after the French incursion, but before 1917, are actually only tiny little towns still and are definitely not what we would think of as an incorporated city. It's a different system altogether.

(This post was edited by mazbook1 on Nov 9, 2011, 3:16 PM)

Nov 9, 2011, 3:22 PM

Post #18 of 25 (1553 views)

Re: [mazbook1] List of dangerous states

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I can't speak to the situation in the U.S.
However, in England (as in Mexico) the designation of "city" (most commonly done by charter) does NOT confer any special rights other than that of calling itself a "city".
For a lengthy, but quite interesting, historical description of cities in the UK, and how they were designated, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/...n_the_United_Kingdom

PS The equivalent wikipedia entry for US cities - http://en.wikipedia.org/...ed_States_of_America - is far less informative

(This post was edited by tonyburton on Nov 9, 2011, 3:26 PM)

richmx2

Nov 10, 2011, 8:51 AM

Post #19 of 25 (1482 views)

Re: [arbon] List of dangerous states

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I think Bill's point — an an excellent one — was that Pátzcuaro, had "City" in its name at the time of founding AND was also the diocesan headquarters: evidence that "Ciudad" might have been given to cities with Bishops for some legal or customary reason. I suppose someone can plow through Spanish legal code of the 1500s for a definitive answer, but that someone's isn't gonna be me. I wouldn't know where to begin.

So many names have changed, and so many Dioceses have been created, or their seats have been moved from one place to another over the centuries, it's not a good idea to assume that a place with Ciudad in the name that existed (even under the same name) in the colonial era, or the very early colonial era, necessarily has a Cathedral.

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Nov 10, 2011, 2:46 PM

Post #20 of 25 (1443 views)

Re: [tonyburton] List of dangerous states

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Tony, just one last note. In England, one of the main criteria for becoming a chartered City is that (with very, very rare exceptions) the lower-case city must already be an incorporated, self-ruled city. That is not possible in México as there are no incorporated, self-ruled cities unless you count those whose complete urban area is urban, and without doing any research, I don't believe that any of the legally-designated Ciudades in México fulfill that particular requirement. There are certainly a number of municipios that are totally urban, but are not legally-designated Ciudades, so I don't think you will find that you cannot list any exceptions to my off-the-cuff rule. You're still thinking of the Ciudades with an expat mindset rather than a Mexican mindset.

Nov 10, 2011, 6:20 PM

Post #21 of 25 (1409 views)

Re: [mazbook1] List of dangerous states

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This may be splitting a hair, but if the things that common people call cities/"ciudades" are not cities, then: What are they? & What are Ayuntamientos and Alcaldias ?

My family members think their family has lived for 130 years in the "city of Merida": "Ayuntamiento de Merida" .

This is my way of saying that a city may not necessarily be defined only by some recent or modern legal convention. Maybe I oversimplify things, but:
Do recent precedents and recent conventions now eliminate previous centuries of customs?
steve
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(This post was edited by YucaLandia on Nov 10, 2011, 6:51 PM)

norteño

Nov 10, 2011, 8:38 PM

Post #22 of 25 (1384 views)

Re: [YucaLandia] List of dangerous states

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In Mexico in the modern era, at least, the designation of "Ciudad" just means it becomes part of the place's official name, nothing more. What any ordinary Mexican understands the term "ciudad" to mean is "city" as understood by any American, regardless of whether the word is part of the name, just as in the U. S. Los Angeles is no less a city than New York City. "Ayuntamiento" is the municipal hall and "alcaldía"is the office of the mayor.

Nov 10, 2011, 10:56 PM

Post #23 of 25 (1363 views)

Re: [mazbook1] List of dangerous states

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mazbook1:
I have no idea what prompted such a gratuitous insult, but hope it made you feel better.

Your previous posts did, among other things, elucidate some of the possible commonalities among Cities (with a capital C) in Mexico (eg Ciudad Guzmán, Ciudad Pemex).

My own thoughts, as a geographer with a long professional and personal interest in Mexico, can be summarized as follows:

1. In Mexico there is no simple, commonly-agreed definition of a city. Worldwide, including Mexico, academics from different disciplines have very different views as to what precisely constitutes a "city".

2. Mexican geographers use "city" only as a general indicator of size, and do not waste time arguing about the supposed difference (or differences) between a city and a large town.

On the other hand, in Mexico, there is some consensus as to what constitutes a "metropolitan area" ~ see, for example, http://www.inegi.gob.mx/est/contenidos/espanol/metodologias/otras/zonas_met.pdf

3. In Mexico (as in the UK) some settlements have been given/awarded/granted the designation of "city". These settlements vary greatly in population and areal extent. In both countries, designation as a "city" makes little or no practical difference to the area's day-to-day management at the local or municipal level. In both countries, some cities have a cathedral, while others do not.

Over and out, Tony

Nov 10, 2011, 10:57 PM

Post #24 of 25 (1360 views)

Re: [norteño] List of dangerous states

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I entirely agree.

Bennie García

Nov 11, 2011, 5:33 AM

Post #25 of 25 (1350 views)