San Diego–Tijuana is an international transborder agglomeration, straddling the border of the adjacent North American coastal cities of San Diego, California, United States, and Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico. The 2020 population of the region was 5,456,577, making it the largest bi-national conurbation shared between the United States and Mexico, and the second-largest shared between the US and another country. The conurbation consists of San Diego County, (2020 population 3,298,634) in the United States and the municipalities of Tijuana (2020 pop. 1,922,523), Rosarito Beach (126,980), and Tecate (108,440) in Mexico. It is the third-most populous region in the California–Baja California region, smaller only than the metropolitan areas of Greater Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area. San Diego–Tijuana traces its European roots to 1542, when the land was explored by Portuguese explorers on behalf of the Spanish Empire. In 1601, it was mandated by the Spanish viceroy in Mexico City that safe ports be found, one of which would be San Diego Bay, for ships of the Manila galleon. During this mission, explorer Sebastián Vizcaíno was also told to map the California coast in great detail, leading to the further exploration of the modern-day site of San Diego–Tijuana. Since 2010, statewide droughts in California and in northern Mexico have further strained the San Diego–Tijuana binational region's water security. The metropolitan region is host to 13 consulates for several countries. Over fifty million people cross the border each year between San Diego and Tijuana; it is the busiest land-border crossing in the Western Hemisphere. Since the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, San Diego–Tijuana has become a dominant commercial center in the United States and Mexico. The economic success of globalization has allowed San Diego–Tijuana to grow to the third richest region in the former Californias region, with a GDP of $136.3 billion in 2002. Tourism is a leading industry in the region and its coastal environs have been paramount factors in the growth of action sports–lifestyle companies; other key industries include military, biotech, and manufacturing.
History The Kumeyaay, referred to as Diegueño by the Spanish, are the original inhabitants of San Diego County and northern Baja California. The Kumeyaay lived in this region for over 10,000 years as hunter-gatherers and horticulturists. The boundaries of the Kumeyaay lands once extended from the Pacific Ocean, south to Ensenada, Baja California, east into the Imperial Valley and north to Warner Springs. The Luiseño, or Payómkawichum, also had a presence in modern-day North County San Diego. Western exploration of the Californias dates back to the 16th century when in 1535 Hernán Cortés first visited the Baja California Peninsula in his search for Calafia. Subsequent exploration in 1542 by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo brought the western explorers to what is now the California-Baja California region. Cabrillo first named San Diego, San Miguel. Initial expeditions by the west to the Californias were followed by pacification and conversion efforts by the Spanish Empire and the Catholic Church. The first Catholic religious order to visit the region was the Jesuits in 1683, followed by the Franciscans in 1768, and the Dominicans in the 1770s. The California mission system is a reminder of the Pacific Coast's colonial era. In 1769 Father Junípero Serra founded San Diego after occupying the Kumeyaay village of Kosa'aay and created the first of the California missions, Mission San Diego de Alcalá. The Valley of Tijuana was explored the same year by Juan Crespí. In 1829 Santiago Argüello, a Californio and a major Mexican land grant ranchos owner, obtained ownership of a parcel of land known as Rancho Tía Juana and in 1889 was Tijuana officially founded on this parcel when descendants of Argüello and Agustin Olvera, an early Los Angeles pioneer, agreed to develop the city.
The metropolitan region was historically united as part of the province of Alta California under the Viceroyalty of New Spain. In 1821, Mexico won its independence from the Spanish crown and kept the area under the jurisdiction of Alta California. From the late 1860s Mission lands were granted as ranchos to Californio gentry. These distributions of lands accelerated after the Missions were secularized in 1833, ending the dominance of the Missions in the economy. San Diego Bay became a port of call for whalers and hide traders from the United States. The region started depopulating, as settlements in the region began to be raided between 1836 and 1842 by the Kumeyaay resistance, with both Rancho Tía Juana (1839) and San Diego (~1840 & 1842) raided during that period. In 1846, the Mexican–American War began and the United States continued to expand its borders under the doctrine of Manifest Destiny. As the war came to California, the Battle of San Pasqual was fought in the northern areas of modern-day San Diego. In 1848 the war ended with the Fall of Mexico City and boundaries were redrawn which created a border between San Diego and Tijuana, 3 miles (4.8 km) south of San Diego Bay. 1919 saw the implementation of Prohibition and the rapid growth of Tijuana tourism. Americans flocked to the city, which had become a major destination for the Hollywood elite, which led to the construction of the Agua Caliente Tourist Complex which in turn spurred the rise of hotels and overall growth in the city.
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