Leon, officially from León Los Aldama, also known as La Perla y Motor del Bajío or the World Footwear Capital, is a Mexican city, head of the homonymous municipality, located in the State of Guanajuato. The metropolitan area of León has just over 2,000,000 inhabitants in 2019, which makes it the most populated town in the state and the seventh most populated in the country. It is located 384 km from the capital of the country, Mexico City. The city is among the 6 most important cities in Mexico, along with Mexico City, Guadalajara, Monterrey, Puebla and Queretaro.
This town is part of the Metropolitan Area of León, which together with the surrounding municipalities, is the seventh largest metropolis in the country and the largest in the Bajío macro region, with just over 2,000,000 inhabitants. It was founded on January 20,1576 by Martín Enríquez de Almansa under the name of Villa de León, received its current name in 1830 in honor of the insurgents Juan Aldama and Ignacio Aldama, who participated in the Mexican War of Independence. Since the 40s of the twentieth century, the economy of the city has revolved basically around the productive chain of leather, footwear, supplies and leather goods -that is why it is called the Footwear Capital of the World-, although by the beginning of the century XXI, begins to reorient its economy to services and the automotive industry.
This place is consolidating other economic vocations: high specialty and diagnostic health care, higher education and research, as well as business tourism, although it is not the political capital of the state, it is considered the economic, social, commercial and service capital. In 2011, he received an honorable mention in the Sustainable Transport Award 2011 along with Guangzhou, China, surpassing San Francisco, California and Zurich, Switzerland, ranked third in Latin America with the largest cycle path network. Of the Future of the British newspaper Financial Times, León occupies the first position in Latin America in the division of the largest cities with the best cost and modernity with a high standard of living in the northern region.
In March 2012, he received an award as Local Water Champion, together with Buenos Aires, Argentina, Rotterdam, Holland and Lyon, France, among other places, which was granted by the World Water Council in Marseille, France, mainly for demonstrating greater progress in the topics of sanitation and reuse of wastewater and cogeneration of energy from biogas. In February 2018, León was considered among the 100 most renewable cities in the world, according to the result of the Carbon Disclosure Project, published by Bloomberg. The City of León stands out because 76% of the energy used in the region is renewable. The results of the CDP mention the following data. In the city 2.5% of solar energy is used, 73.86% geothermal and 23.64% gas. Another peculiarity is that it is the only Mexican city in this list.