Sonora's Desert Capital — Hermosillo is the gateway to the Sea of Cortez's luminous beaches and the Sonoran Desert's towering saguaro, the Sonoran beef carne asada tradition is arguably Mexico's finest, and Kino Bay is the closest pristine Sea of Cortez beach to any major Mexican city
Hermosillo is the capital of Sonora State — a desert city of 850,000 in the Sonoran Desert, 280 km south of Tucson and 290 km from the Sea of Cortez. The Sonoran Desert surrounding Hermosillo is one of the most biologically rich deserts in the world — its giant saguaro cactus forests (native only to the Sonoran Desert, reaching 15 metres and living 200 years), diverse wildlife, and dramatic geology give it a stark beauty. Kino Bay (Bahía de Kino, 105 km west) is the nearest Sea of Cortez beach resort — a low-key Sonoran fishing community with the cleanest water on Mexico's Pacific coast. Sono…
The Pima Alto (O'odham) people inhabited the Sonoran Desert river valleys for millennia before Spanish Jesuit missionary contact in the 1690s. The city was founded as Pitic in 1741 as a military presidio and renamed Hermosillo in 1828 after General José María González Hermosillo, a hero of Mexican independence. The Cananea Copper Mine (180 km north) was the site of the 1906 Cananea Strike, one of the events that triggered the Mexican Revolution of 1910. The modern economy is driven by Ford's Hermosillo Assembly Plant (one of the most productive automotive plants in North America, opened 1986)…