Merida (redirected from Mérida (disambiguation))

Mérida 

a city in southeastern Mexico, on the Yucatan Peninsula, and the administrative center of the state of Yucatan. Population, 253,800 (1970). Mérida is a highway and railroad junction and has an international airport. It is the center of one of the world’s largest henequen-producing regions, and its chief industries are textiles (henequen processing), food processing, and metalworking. Products are shipped through the port of Progreso. Mérida has a university and is a popular tourist center.

Mérida’s rectangular network of streets follows the layout of the ancient Maya city on whose site it was built. Most of the buildings dating from the 16th through the 18th century resemble fortresses. Noteworthy buildings include the San Ildefonso Cathedral (1563-99; principal architects, P. de Aulestia and F. de Alarcón), whose south tower was added in 1713; the San Francisco monastery (1561; architect, A. de Tarancón), Montejo House (1549-51), built in the plateresque style; and the churches of Las Monjas (1610-33), La Mejorada (1640), La Tercera (late 17th century), San Cristóbal (1755-99), and San Juan de Dios (1770). The Yucatán Museum of Archaeology and History contains collections of Maya pottery and sculpture and artworks dating from the colonial period.

REFERENCE

Cervantes, E. A. Bosquejo del desarrollo de la ciudad de Mérida. Mexico City, 1945.