Nuevo Laredo (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈnweβo laˈɾeðo]) is a city in the Municipality of Nuevo Laredo in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. The city lies on the banks of the Rio Grande, across from the American city of the same name. The 2010 census population of the city was 373,725. Nuevo Laredo is part of the Laredo-Nuevo Laredo Metropolitan Area with a population of 636,516. The municipality has an area of 1,334.02 km2 (515.07 sq mi). Both the city and the municipality rank as the third largest in the state.
The city is connected to Laredo, Texas by three international bridges and a rail bridge. The city is larger and younger than its American counterpart. As an indication of its economic importance, one of Mexico’s banderas monumentales is in the city (these banderas have been established in state capitals and cities of significance).
Nuevo Laredo was part of the territory of the original settlement of Laredo (now in Texas) which was founded in 1755 by the Spaniard Don Tomás Sánchez in the northern part of the Rio Grande. The settlement’s territory was granted to José de Escandón by the King of Spain, and the settlement’s territory and population remained unified for ninety years, until the war of 1846–1848, the Mexican–American War.
Early in 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo divided the territory attached to Laredo between the United States (specifically, Texas) and Mexico. Nuevo Laredo was founded on June 15, 1848, by seventeen Laredo families who wished to remain Mexican and therefore moved to the Mexican side of the Rio Grande. They identified with Mexico, its history, and its cultural customs, and decided to keep their Mexican citizenship. The founders of Nuevo Laredo even took with them the bones of their ancestors so they would continue to rest in Mexican ground.
