STUDENT INFORMATION
SAN LUIS POTOSÍ
San Luis Potosí city, the capital of one of the 32 Mexican states also called San Luis Potosí, is located at the Northern latitude of 22° 19’ and the Eastern longitude of 100° 58’, at a distance of 363 km North-Northeast from Mexico City. It lies in the Valley of Tangamanga at an altitude of 1,877 meters above sea level and has a temperate, semiarid climate with a mean annual temperature varying between 18 y 20° C.
Founded as a Franciscan mission on the 3rd of November in 1592, San Luis Potosí became the centre of the region’s colonial government and mining operations. Its name was chosen due to the regional similarity regarding the mineral richness of Potosí, Bolivia and in order to honor San Luis, the king of France. It played an important part in the political disorders following Mexico’s independence, and for a brief time in 1863 it was the seat of Benito Juárez’s national government. It was there that Francisco Madero drew up his Plan of San Luis (1910), which contained the political and social goals for the Mexican Revolution against Porfirio Díaz.
San Luis Potosí has numerous manorial buildings of colonial architecture of the era of Porfirio Diaz and a beautiful baroque historical centre which was officially nominated a Mexican candidate for the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage.
San Luis Potosí with its rich silver, gold, copper, zinc, and bismuth deposits is one of Mexico's leading mining states and has an important industrial centre with companies specialized in steel production, mechanics, metallurgy, mining, food processing, furniture, etc., while many of them cover the local and national market as well as exporting their products to all over the World.
With a population of about 1 million inhabitants, San Luis Potosí has an advantageous location as it is an intermediate point between the three most important cities of the country: México City, Monterrey and Guadalajara as well as due to its position between four significant Mexican ports: Tampico, Altamira, Manzanillo and Mazatlan.