Travel Guide Cuauhtémoc

Located 107 kilometers west of Chihuahua, it is an agricultural and commercial city of 160,000 people at an altitude of 2,100 meters above sea level; the Cuauhtémoc region is known for its apple and cheese production, which is distributed throughout Mexico and beyond. Above all, it is home to one of the largest Mennonite communities in the world, an ethnic-religious group of German and Dutch origin that has lived in a closed community since the 16th century. They speak their own language (a derivative of Flemish and Old German), practice an austere religiosity, and insist on living apart from the educational systems of the countries to which they migrate or are invited. There are now several tens of thousands of them in another dimension, with their own language and traditional dress, spread over 60 farms north of the city. Today, if they still organize themselves in a closed world, with their own businesses and banks, this ethnic group with its marked contours no longer lives in a traditional way and most of them - to varying degrees - have become formidable players in the agri-food business, gradually integrating modernism since the second half of the 20th century, first with regard to their work tools and then in their daily lives: agricultural machinery, cars, electricity, mobile phones and university studies are the order of the day for almost all of them. There is a range of practices, from the traditional to the liberal. Only one truly traditional community remains, a three-hour drive from the city.