Puerto Vallarta

Puerto Vallarta (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈpweɾto βaˈʎaɾta] or simply Vallarta) is a Mexican resort city near the Bahía de Banderas on the Pacific coast of the Mexican state of Jalisco. Puerto Vallarta is the second largest urban agglomeration in the state after the Guadalajara metropolitan area. The city of Puerto Vallarta is the government seat of the municipality of Puerto Vallarta, which comprises the city as well as population centers outside of the city, extending from Boca de Tomatlán to the Nayarit border (the Ameca River). The city is located at 20°40′N 105°16′W / 20.667°N 105.267°W / 20.667; -105.267. The municipality has an area of 681 square kilometres (262.9 sq mi). To the north, it borders the southwest of the state of Nayarit. To the east, it borders the municipality of Mascota and San Sebastián del Oeste, and to the south, it borders the municipalities of Talpa de Allende and Cabo Corrientes.

Puerto Vallarta is named after Ignacio Vallarta, a former governor of Jalisco. In Spanish, Puerto Vallarta is frequently shortened to "Vallarta", while English speakers call the city P.V. for short. In Internet shorthand, the city is often referred to as PVR, after the International Air Transport Association airport code for its Gustavo Diaz Ordaz International Airport.

Pirates were known to sack villages and attack ships along the Pacific Coast of Mexico early in the 16th century. As early as 1510, rogue conquistadores and their slaves turned to piracy shortly after establishing the village of Santa María la Antigua del Darién, now in Panama. Just 50 miles west, they discovered the Pacific Ocean. To escape growing Spanish control in Darién, a contingent relocated to Acla. In 1518, they used the Pacific's Panama Bay as a base for pirating operations. Native tribes later attacked Darién and briefly retook control in 1524. Just two years earlier, a new group of rogue conquistadors established pirating operations on Terarequi Island in the Gulf of Panama and later Santo Domingo, Nicaragua.

In 1524, the nephew of Mexico's most famous Spanish conquistador, Hernán Cortés, led the first official Spanish exploration into the Tintoque region (now Valle de Banderas) on foot with a troop of soldiers. Upon entering the village, Francisco Cortés of San Buenaventura and his soldiers were surrounded by an angry mob of indigenous warriors carrying weapons. According to local legend, pirates had already been anchoring in this bay, pillaging local villagers, and burying treasure in the hills. These attacks instilled a fear of outsiders by local villagers. A Catholic friar accompanying the Spanish troops began praying to the Lord for help. The warriors immediately lowered their weapons, allowing the explorers to pass peacefully. According to reports, the warriors were mesmerized by the flags (banderas) the soldiers carried. The encounter with villagers is believed to be how the bay was named. In the following years, Bahía de Banderas became a major port and safe harbor for ships traveling the Manila galleon.

In 1531, conquistador Hernán Cortés set out to explore the Pacific coast of Mexico and establish a safe harbor for cargo ships sailing the planned Manila Galleon Trade Route. He used the earlier established port of Acapulco to resupply his ships. While anchored in Acapulco, Cortés sent two of his ships North to explore the coastline without him. Just several hundred miles North, his ships located the large bay his nephew had discovered earlier. One of his ships wrecked in what is now known as Bahía de Banderas, and all but three men were reportedly killed. It is believed that the corpses of the lost sailors washed ashore. Native villagers encountered numerous corpses on the beach for days after the wreck. The encounters with the dead crew are believed to be how the beach was named.

Few details are known about the history of the area prior to the 19th century. There is archaeological evidence to suggest continuous human habitation from 580 BC, and similar evidence (from sites near Ixtapa and in Col. Lázaro Cárdenas) that the area belonged to the Aztlán culture which dominated Jalisco, Nayarit and Michoacán from c. 900–1200. The limited evidence in occidental Mexican archeology have limited the current knowledge about pre-historic life in the area.

The official founding story of Las Peñas and thus of Puerto Vallarta is that it was founded by Guadalupe Sánchez Torres, his wife Ambrosia Carrillo and some friends such as Cenobio Joya, Apolonio de Robles, Cleofas Peña and Martín Andrade, among others, on December 12, 1851, and was given the name of Las Peñas de Santa María de Guadalupe since it was the day dedicated to the virgin of Guadalupe. Although the purchase record of the property by Guadalupe Sanchez is dated 1859, his family lived there prior to the purchase year.

There is however no doubt the development of Las Peñas into a self-sustaining village of any significant size happened in the 1860s as the mouth of the Cuale area was exploited to support the operations of the newly enfranchised Union en Cuale company. As such 1859 marks the beginning of Puerto Vallarta as a village. Twenty years later, by 1885, the village comprised about 250 homes and about 800 residents.