Naucalpan, officially
Naucalpan de Juárez, is a city and municipality located just northwest of
Mexico City in adjoining
State of Mexico. The name Naucalpan comes from
Nahuatl and means “place of the four neighborhoods or four houses. “de Juárez was added to the official name in 1874 in honor of
Benito Juárez. The history of the area begins with the Tlatilica who settled on the edges of the Hondo River between 1700 and 600 B.C.E., but it was the
Aztecs who gave it its current name when they dominated it from the 15th century until the
Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. Naucalpan claims to be the area where
Hernán Cortés rested on the “
Noche Triste” as they fled
Tenochtitlan in 1520, but this is disputed. It is the home of the
Virgin of Los Remedios, a small image of the
Virgin Mary which is strongly associated with the Conquest and is said to have been left here. Today, the city of Naucalpan is actually larger than the municipality itself, with part of it extending into neighboring
Huixquilucan Municipality. It is a major center of industry in Mexico. It is, however, best known as the location of
Ciudad Satélite, a development from the 1960s and the site of the Toreo de Cuatro Caminos
bullring, which was recently demolished. The only unurbanized areas of the municipality are the
Los Remedios National Park and a number of
ejidos, however, the lack of housing has put serious pressure on these areas.