Contemporary guadalajara
Guadalajara is Mexico's second largest city, and one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the country. This growth has been driven in part by the booming electronic industry in the cities industrial outskirts. Other important and growing industries are pharmaceuticals, food processing, and fashion.
The University of Guadalajara, often referred to simply as "U de G" "OOO day HAY" is Western Mexico's most important institution of higher learning, and Mexico's second most important after Mexico City's mammoth UNAM. The University also serves as a center of cultural activity enjoyed by residents and tourists alike, such as the Ballet Folclórico and the Cineforo Universidad.
A rose by any other name: tapatío
Some local vocabulary: a Tapatío is a resident of Guadalajara. Alonso de Molina, a colonial era Franciscan, argued that in Nahuatl the word meant "the price of something purchased." However nobody would call themselves that, and Nauhatl was never spoken in the region. Latter day etymologies have struggled to come up with any credible account. So one might as well just take it as a fact: natives of Guadalajara call themselves Tapatíos.
Understand
Guadalajara is divided into several districts. The main areas of interest to tourists are the Centro Historico and the Minerva - Chapultepec - Zona Rosa areas. These are located on an East-West axis centered on Av. Vallarta named Av. Juárez in the Centro Historico and stretch from the Plaza TapatÃa/Plaza Mariachis on the East side to the Fuente Minerva/Arcos Vallarta on the West side. Outside of the downtown area are three areas also of interest to the tourist: Tlaquepaque, Tonalá - located SE of the centro and known for their handicraft shops and markets, and Zapopan - located NW of the centro and famous as a site of pilgrimage and for it's old-town charm. Conveniently the 275-diagonal bus route runs from Tlaquepaque through the centro to Zapopan, providing convenient access to all of these sites.
Guadalajara's recent history
Guadalajara and Jalisco in general were the center of the Cristero Wars 1926-1929, a rebellion by catholic guerillas against the secularizing reforms of Plutarco Calles's presidency. One of the first armed conflicts of the rebellion took place in Gudalajara in the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe August 3, 1926, where a group of several hundred cristeros engaged in a shootout with federal troops. Guadalajara itself was attacked unsuccessfully by the Cristero armies in March of 1929.
In the 1950s Av Juárez was widened to create the arterial axis of Juárez-Vallarta which you see today. A famous part of that work was moving the central telephone exchange without disrupting service. Pictures of this feat of engineering can be seen in the City Museum.
In April 1992, the Reforma area was rocked by a huge explosion of gasoline, when a gasoline pipe line leaked into the sewers over a period of days until the fumes finally detonated. Some 200 were killed and several thousand injured. The explosion affected mostly the working class and industrial sector on the South side of the city.
In May 1993, Cardinal Ocampo of Guadalajara was killed at the Guadalajara airport. Though at the time the murder was thought to have been some sort of politically motivated assassination, subsequent investigations favor the theory that the cardinal was caught by mistake in drug related violence, his motorcade having been mistaken for that of a drug lord. Cardinal Ocampo is buried beneath the high altar of the Guadalajara Cathedral, probably because his murder was initially fêted as political martyrdom rather than as an accident.