Mexico's most paintable colonial city — where San Miguel de Allende's 1,900-metre highland position above the Bajío plain gives perpetual 22°C spring weather 365 days a year, the La Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel's neo-Gothic pink stone facade (a self-taught Otomí bricklayer named Zeferino Gutiérrez rebuilt it in 1880 from postcard pictures of European cathedrals) defines every skyline photograph of Mexico, the city is home to the largest concentration of American and Canadian expat artists in Latin America, and San Miguel was the first Mexican city ever preserved entirely intact as a living monument — in 1926, 50 years before UNESCO began listing World Heritage cities
San Miguel de Allende (70,000 city; 165,000 metro including Dolores Hidalgo district) is a colonial highland city in Guanajuato state at 1,900 metres elevation — notable for its UNESCO World Heritage historic centre (2008), its year-round perfect climate (20–25°C, virtually no rainy season disruption), its enormous international expat arts community (estimated 10,000+ American and Canadian residents), and its La Parroquia church with the extraordinary self-designed 19th-century neo-Gothic tower that has become the single most recognisable image of colonial Mexico. San Miguel is also the birth…
San Miguel de Allende was founded in 1542 by Franciscan friar Juan de San Miguel as a mission to the Chichimec people and later became a Camino Real waystation on the silver trade route between Zacatecas and Mexico City. The city's most famous son is Ignacio Allende (1769–1811), born on December 21, 1769 in the city's Plaza Principal — a Spanish-born creole military officer who became one of the primary military commanders of the Mexican Independence movement alongside Father Miguel Hidalgo. Allende was captured, executed, and beheaded by Spanish royalists on June 26, 1811; his head (along wi…