Camino Real Tierra Adentro is Tangible Cultural Heritage

The Secretary of Tourism requested the Governor Guanajuato to issue the declaration to establish the safeguarding of the cultural itinerary of the Camino Real in Guanajuato

Silao/Gto News

Guanajuato becomes the first State, at a binational level Mexico-US, to convert the cultural itinerary of the Camino Real Tierra Adentro -CRTA- into “Tangible Cultural Heritage of the Guanajuatenses”, declared by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization -UNESCO-.

This declaration, published on July 1, 2024 in the Official Newspaper of the Government of the State of Guanajuato, through Government Decree Number 171, implies a responsibility for the conservation and preservation of the heritage of Guanajuato and the nine municipalities involved. 

The Camino Real involves the municipalities of:

• Apaseo el Grande, Comonfort, San Miguel de Allende, Dolores Hidalgo, San Felipe, Ocampo, Guanajuato, San Luis de la Paz and San Diego de la Union

In these destinations there are still vestiges of cobblestones, haciendas livestock farms, bridges, watering holes and dams, a very important collection that offers the possibility of having a narrative of what is also known as the “Camino de la Plata”.

Juan Jose Alvarez Brunel, Secretary of Tourism of the State of Guanajuato, has been one of the main promoters of the preservation and rescue of the CRTA, a heritage that symbolizes the greatest historical cultural recognized asset that combines the great wealth of Guanajuato, along with the World Cities Heritage of Humanity of Guanajuato and San Miguel de Allende, as one of the most valuable cultural itineraries on the planet.

In 2010, the CRTA achieved the declaration of World Heritage in the category of Cultural Itinerary, which includes 60 sites (of which five are previously inscribed on the World Heritage List) located in 1,400 kilometers that cover the country, a total of 2,600 km. from Mexico City to Texas and New Mexico, in the United States.

This was the main route -between the 16th and 19th centuries- that made possible the transport of the silver extracted from the mines of Zacatecas, Guanajuato, San Luis Potosi, Durango and Chihuahua, as well as communication, trade and the movement of people between the center of New Spain and the north of the viceroyalty.

In 2020, the Guanajuato Tourism Secretary made an investigation that made possible that the routes derived from the CRTA were recorded in a geographic information system; in addition to the survey of the Historical Route, sites of heritage interest linked to the CRTA were registered and cataloged, with a total of 756 km registered, 70 sites and 14 towns.

Since 2021, a comprehensive plan and general regional model was developed for the management and governance of the heritage significance of the Camino Real in Guanajuato, according to UNESCO guidelines, with special emphasis on the municipalities where it was developed in the 16th century.

The Management Plan includes:

• The protection of sites and monuments
• Dissemination of heritage value
• The management of cultural heritage

For this reason, the Ministry of Tourism requested the State Executive to issue the declaration to establish the safeguarding of the Camino Real cultural itinerary in the State of Guanajuato, which was subjected to evaluation and, once the opinions of the State Institute of Culture and the Secretary of Social and Human Development were issued, the request was justified.