One of the best restored and preserved ancient fortresses in Mexico holds the history of the port of Acapulco: its original population, the age of sail, the Manila Galleons, the first trade with China, the missionary expeditions, attacks by pirates, and the siege in the War of Independence.

An eighteenth-century country house where Don José María Morelos lived during the siege of Cuautla in 1812. It contains objects and explanations of local and regional history since pre-Hispanic times up to the Zapatista uprising, with an emphasis on Morelos and Emiliano Zapata.

The 1886 Ensenada military barracks (later to become a jail and then a training hospital) houses the regional history museum showing: Baja Californian life, landscapes and culture from their remote origins until the military revolt of 1885. The collection includes early remains as well as memorable photographs from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The San Nicolás Obispo College, built for Vasco de Quiroga and opened in 1540, displays the wonderful handcrafts of Michoacan which include: pottery, copper, stone and wooden crafts, lacquerware from Uruapan and Quiroga, Patzcuaro-style guilding, backstrap weaving, treadle loom weaving and embroidery.

The local museum in Compostela, the second capital of New Galicia, is now in an eighteenth century house. It has a valuable pre-Hispanic collection of the shaft tomb and Aztatlan cultures. Many objects tell the later story of the city and the surrounding district.

Franciscan monastery built between 1544 and 1570 in the Plateresque and Mudéjar styles with one of the few Simon Pereyns altarpieces in Mexico. It illustrates missionary work in central Mexico during the colonial period through a wide range of objects.

The beautiful chapel of the Virgin Mary, the chaplain’s house, a military barracks and four bastions make up this strange, airy building on a lofty site whose seven galleries tell the story of the fort in the wars of Independence, Reform, Intervention and the Revolution.

According to Justo Sierra, the ancient Mexicans were people of corn. This plant of humble origins was domesticated and greatly improved over the course of a long and astonishing social and biological history, as set out in this museum, together with the ancient figures of pre-Hispanic gods.

A contemporary architectural project, respecting the natural setting, this museum was inaugurated recently and houses one of the most considerable collections of Maya art in the country, with local pieces as well as from other states, incorporated into the San Miguelito archeological zone.

Mexico’s most emblematic museum, and one of the world’s finest, contains an astoundingly rich archeological collection from the country’s numerous indigenous communities. A truly priceless treasure.

The former residence of viceroys, presidents and an emperor, Chapultepec Castle was the site of a major encounter during the Mexican-American war of 1847, and contains a splendid collection of historical artifacts.

The National Museum of World Cultures is one of the five national museums managed by the National Institute of Anthropology and History, and the only one in the country with the clear intention of introducing visitors to the cultural diversity of the world.