Tijuana (tiˈxwana; tiːˈhwɑːnə , USˌtiːəˈwɑːnə , UKtᵻˈhwɑːnə .) is a city and municipal seat of Tijuana Municipality, Baja California, located on the Pacific Coast of Mexico. It is part of the San Diego-Tijuana metro area and the larger Southern California megapolitan area.
Tijuana traces its modern history to the arrival of Spanish explorers in the 16th century who were mapping the coast of the Californias. Following the division of the Californias after the American Conquest of California, Tijuana found itself located on an international border, giving rise to a new economic and political structure. The city was incorporated on 11 July 1889 as urban development began. The city has served as a major tourist destination since the 1880s.
Tijuana is the 45th largest city in the Americas and is the westernmost city in Mexico. According to the 2015 census, the Tijuana metropolitan area was the fifth-largest in Mexico, with a population of 1,840,710, but rankings vary, the city (locality) itself was 6th largest and the municipality (administrative) third largest nationally. The international metropolitan region was estimated at 5,158,459 in 2016, making it the third-largest metropolitan area in The Californias, 19th-largest metropolitan area in the Americas, and the largest bi-national conurbation that is shared between US and Mexico. Tijuana is becoming more suburbanized like San Diego.
Tijuana is the second most populous city in Mexico and center of the 6th-largest metro area in Mexico, The city is one of the fastest-growing metro areas in the country and rated as a "High Sufficiency" global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. , the city of Tijuana had a population of 1,810,645, with its metropolitan area containing a population of 2,157,853 as of 2020, an estimated 2,002,000 within the urban area.
Tijuana is a dominant manufacturing center for North America, hosting facilities of many multinational conglomerate companies.