Oaxaca Hotels

Oaxaca Hotels

Hotels in the city and region of Oaxaca are often required for tourists who need short term accommodation in the culture, entertainment, history and society in the region. Some may want a hotel that has good views and good access to culture and to entertainment. Some may want a hotel that is large or small. Some may want a hotel that has a good reputation and good access to scenery and to famous historical landmarks. Some may want a hotel that has good prices and is cheap or luxury.

Oaxaca named for its largest city, is one of the 31 states of Mexico, located in the southern part of the country, west of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Oaxaca borders the states of Guerrero to the west, Puebla to the northwest, Veracruz to the north, Chiapas to the east, and the Pacific Ocean in the south.

Oaxaca, the historic home of the Zapotec and Mixtec peoples, contains more speakers of indigenous languages than any other Mexican state.

Notable Oaxacans include President Benito Juárez, born in the Oaxacan village of San Pablo Guelatao, as well as Rufino Tamayo, Porfirio Diaz, José Vasconcelos, Francisco Toledo, María Sabina, J. Alberto Canseco Díaz, Major League Baseball player Vinicio Castilla, chemical engineer Marco Rito-Palomares and many other writers, artists and politicians.

Oaxaca's rugged terrain, which caused various groups to develop in relative isolation from one another, is responsible for the cultural and linguistic diversity of the region. The central Valley of Oaxaca was one of the most fertile areas of the Americas and allowed powerful and influential groups to emerge. The valley was first occupied by the Zapotec people, who were conquered by the Mixtecs in the thirteenth century. Society was mainly organized in villages by extended family groups with communal authority, although the civilizations of the Mixtecs and Zapotecs did have kings and religious orders.
Looking southwest over the site of Monte Alban.

Among these civilizations' accomplishments were the domestication of many plants and animals including corn, beans, chocolate, tomatoes, chiles, squash, pumpkin, and turkeys. Also available in the fertile region of Oaxaca were pineapples, avocados, zapotes, and maguey. In the south, the Pacific Ocean was an important food source. The civilizations built by these groups are reflected in important archaeological sites including Monte Albán, Mitla, Guiengola and Huijatzoo. Monte Albán was a great ceremonial center built on a flattened mountain top by the Zapotec people which reached its zenith between 600 and 900 AD The ancient Zapotec village of Teotitlán del Valle near the city of Oaxaca is one of the oldest human settlements in Mexico.

Throughout the Zapoteca era, local and regional trade flourished, and most important economic activities were agriculture, hunting, fishing and mining; silver and gold having been fashioned by artisans for hundreds of years. Commercial routes passed through Oaxaca to the Mayan lands of the north and south to Central and South America. Major ports were located in present-day Salina Cruz, Astata, Huatulco, Puerto Ángel and Pinotepa Nacional.

In the mid-fifteenth century, the central valley was conquered by the Aztecs, who forced the surrounding Mixtec and Zapotec kingdoms to pay tribute to the emperor in the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan. The Aztec presence had the effect of increasing social and economic ties between Oaxaca and the Aztec heartland. Shortly after 1496, the Aztecs established a garrison in the center of the valley, around the Cerro del Fortín and down to the present Church of Carmen Alto where their temple was located. The Aztecs called their garrison Hua-xyacac, meaning "place of guaje trees" in the Nahuatl language, named for the great number of the species (Leucaena esculenta) in the area. Under Spanish rule, Hua-xyacac would become Oaxaca, and the pronunciation of the x would transition from "sh" to the modern Spanish "j" [h].

Tenochtitlan fell to the Spanish in August of 1521 and with it all of the Aztec empire. On November 25, 1521, Francisco de Orozco arrived in the central valley to claim it in the name of the conquistador Hernan Cortes, who had been granted Oaxaca as his prize for the conquering of New Spain by the Spanish crown. Cortes was thereby named Marques del Valle de Oaxaca. The settlement founded by the Spanish in 1521 as Segura de la Frontera, later known as Nueva Antequera, was officially raised to the category of a royal city in 1532 by decree of Emperor Charles V (Carlos I) with the name of Antequera de Guaxaca.

Transformation was swift in the central valley with the Spanish introducing new food and methods of cultivation. Cortes himself ordered the cultivation of wheat in the Valley of Etla and the construction of mills. The Spanish cultivated sugar cane and imported silkworms. Disease introduced by the arriving Spanish greatly diminished the native population of Oaxaca, as did the insatiable appetite for gold, which led more and more Oaxacans into the dangerous mines.

Over the 300 years of colonialism many aspects of life became Europeanized. Important government positions were filled with the Spanish and their descendants, and later by elite mestizos, persons of mixed European and indigenous ancestry.

Mexico's independence from Spain was won in 1821. Throughout the 1800s and into the early 1900s, Oaxaca remained largely an agriculture-based economy with little new industry. The automobile created a divide between the traditional villages and the new urban world of mobility and fast communication. A railroad was built connecting Oaxaca to Mexico city. Centuries of deforestation resulted in rampant erosion forcing migration to the cities and the U.S.

Oaxaca is located at the convergence of the Sierra Madre Oriental and the Sierra Madre del Sur mountain ranges, resulting in a rugged and mountainous terrain with a large temperate central valley. The average altitude is 1,500 meters (5,085 feet) above sea level.The area is a distinct physiographic section of the larger Sierra Madre del Sur province, which in turn is part of the larger Sierra Madre System physiographic division.

The municipalities are grouped into ; Cañada, Costa, Istmo, Juchitan, Papaloapan, Sierra Norte, Sierra Sur, Valles Centrales.

Oaxaca's principal industry is tourism, with over 250 kilometers (155 mi) of beaches, colonial architecture, archaeological treasures, crafts and folkart. The prominent colonial destination is the city of Oaxaca which contains the Santo Domingo Temple, the Government Palace, the Macedonio Alcala Theater, the Rufino Tamayo Museum of Prehispanic Art, and the House of Cortés.

Monte Alban is the dominant archaeological destination, having been the capital of the ancient Mixtec-Zapotec empire. Mitla, originally meaning "place of the dead" in Zapotec, is known for its unique ancient tile work.

Major communities IN the Oaxaxa include or have included ; Huatulco, Huajuapan de León, Juchitán de Zaragoza, Oaxaca (Oaxaca de Juárez), Puerto Escondido, Salina Cruz, San Juan Bautista Tuxtepec, Santa Cruz Xoxocotlán, Santa Lucía del Camino, Tehuantepec (Santo Domingo Tehuantepec)

The city of Oaxaca (formally: Oaxaca de Juárez, in honor of 19th-century president and national hero Benito Juárez, who was born nearby) is the capital and largest city of the Mexican state of the same name.

It is located in the Valley of Oaxaca in the Sierra Madre del Sur Mountains, near the geographic center of the state, and at an altitude of about 1550 m. The area is known as the three "Valles Centrales" (Central Valleys) region and is surrounded by thick forests of pine and holm oak. The important Monte Albán archaeological site is close to the city.

It is nicknamed "la Verde Antequera" (the green Antequera) due to its prior name (Nueva Antequera) and the variety of structures built from a native green stone.

It is the home of the Guelaguetza native arts and dance festival and the Night of the Radishes celebration. There had been Zapotec and Mixtec settlements in the general area of the modern city of Oaxaca for thousands of years, in connection with the important ancient centers of Monte Albán and Mitla. The area was conquered by the Aztecs in 1486 who named it Huaxyácac, which means "above the place of gourdes". The colonial city, however, dates from 1522, when Spanish settlers who had followed Hernán Cortés' conquistadores successfully petitioned the Queen of Spain for a grant of land. They had already founded a city in the neighbourhood, under the name of Nueva Antequera, on the basis of a charter from King Carlos V of Spain, but Cortés had sought to have the entire Valle de Oaxaca declared as part of his personal marquisate, and to have the settlers removed. The Queen's charter, however, secured the townspeople's rights. Most of the important buildings are within this central area.

At the center of the town is the Plaza de la Constitución, commonly referred to as the Zócalo. It was built by Alonso García Bravo around 1529 when he laid out the downtown of the modern city, modeling it after Spanish cities at the time. The plaza was planted with ash trees in the 18th century, and the marble fountain was added at this time as well.

The plaza is surrounded by various portals. On the south side of the plaza are the Portales de Ex-Palacio de Gobierno, which was vacated by the government in 2005 and then reopened as a museum called "Museo del Palacio 'Espacio de Diversidad'" Other portals include the "Portal de Mercadores" on the eastern side, "Portal de Claverias" on the north side and the "Portal del Señor" on the west side.

Northwest of the Zócalo is the Alameda de León, a garden area.

The Andador Macedonio Alcalá is a street in the center of Oaxaca City that was closed to vehicular traffic some years ago. Now only pedestrians are permitted to pass by here. Along the street are notable public places such as the original building to house the Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez. This building now only houses the law department. The Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (Museum of Contemporary Art) or MACO is located here as is the Plazuela (small plaza) Labastida and the Parroquia de la Preciosa Sangre de Cristo (Parish of the Precious Blood of Christ).

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