15 Interesting Facts About Tijuana

The city of Tijuana is very popular among tourists from the United States and other countries. Immigrants from all over Latin America live here.

Amazing facts about Tijuana

Tijuana is the westernmost city in Latin America. It is located on the US-Mexico border, near the American city of San Diego. Actually, San Diego is its sister city.
In 1900, there were only 242 residents here in Tijuana. However, it is currently the fastest-growing city in all of Latin America, with a ~2 million population. About 80k people (mostly immigrants from other Latin American countries) arrive and settle down here every year.
Plenty of American citizens live here but keep working in San Diego. The reason is simple: the cost of living in Mexico is significantly lower than in the United States, but the salary situation is the opposite. Therefore, that’s convenient to work in one city and live in another.
Sometimes it gets cold here. The air temperature in this city can drop below the freezing point of water (32 °F or 0 °C) However, this happens rarely.
It is one of the most multinational cities in the world. Numerous immigrants from other Latin American countries who failed to get to the United States settle here. There are also huge diasporas of Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans living here.

A lot of illegal immigrants cross the border with the United States here every year. On average, about 1 million illegal immigrants enter the United States through Tijuana every year.
There is a very high crime rate here: smuggling, drug trafficking, and street crime. According to the data of Statista (a German company), this city has the highest homicide rate in the world. Even higher, than in Tegucigalpa, Johannesburg, and Caracas.
In the recent past, the Tijuana Cartel was one of the most influential criminal organizations in Mexico. Thanks to the Mexican and American police, this cartel has now lost its former influence, but it still exists.
The central streets of Tijuana are safe during daylight. There are a lot of police here who keep order, but walking around the city at night wouldn’t be a smart thing to do.
About 50 million people cross the border between Tijuana and San Diego in both directions. Some of them are drug traffickers. They are often caught, but this doesn’t reduce the number of people who want to try to earn “easy money”.

Do you have a digital thermometer at home? It’s probably from Tijuana. About 80% of all digital thermometers in the world are produced in this city.
Mexico is the most popular choice for American and Canadian medical tourists because the average prices in Mexican clinics are much lower. There are dozens of hospitals and clinics in Tijuana, working mainly with Americans.
Tijuana ranks third in Mexico in terms of per capita income (after Mexico City and Cancun). There are hundreds of factories of international corporations here because they are interested in cheap labor.
In the USA, alcohol is sold only from the age of 21, and in Mexico from the age of 18. Tijuana is popular among American students who come here for legal alcohol and fun parties.
The origin of the name of the city is still unknown. There are plenty of spellings of it in various historical documents: La Tía Juana, Tiuana, Ticuan, Tijuan, Tiwana, Teguana and Tiguana.