Nochistlán is a town

Town

A town is a human settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city. The size a settlement must be in order to be called a "town" varies considerably in different parts of the world, so that, for example, many American "small towns" seem to British people to be no more than villages, while...

 in the Mexican state of Zacatecas

Zacatecas

Zacatecas officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Zacatecas is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 58 municipalities and its capital city is Zacatecas....

. Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán

Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán

Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán or sometimes Nuño de Guzmán was a Spanish conquistador and colonial administrator in New Spain. He was Governor of the province of Pánuco from 1525–1533, and of Nueva Galicia from 1529–1534, President of the first Audiencia from 1528-30. He founded several cities in...

, on December 3, 1531, hired Juan de Oñate

Juan de Oñate

Don Juan de Oñate y Salazar was a Spanish explorer, colonial governor of the New Spain province of New Mexico, and founder of various settlements in the present day Southwest of the United States.-Biography:...

 to establish a village

Village

A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...

 in Nochistlán; the village would be named Guadalajara

Guadalajara, Jalisco

Guadalajara is the capital of the Mexican state of Jalisco, and the seat of the municipality of Guadalajara. The city is located in the central region of Jalisco in the western-pacific area of Mexico. With a population of 1,564,514 it is Mexico's second most populous municipality...

 to honor Guzmán for having been born in Guadalajara.
Guadalajara was founded in Nochistlán on January 5, having as officials Juan de Oñate, Sancho Ortíz de Zuñiga and Miguel Ibarra. They worked at this project for only 16 months and created the first layout of Guadalajara.

The first news that we have regarding the natives of these lands points to the Tecuexe

Tecuexe

The Tecuexe were an indigenous group found in the eastern part of present day Guadalajara, Mexico-History:It is believed that the Tecuexe derived from the dispersion of Zacateco groups from La Quemada. Like the Zacatecos, the Tecuexe were a tribe belonging to the generic "Chichimeca" peoples...

. These people established settlements around 1000. Later in the 12th century a new group of people moved in, these people were called Caxcan

Caxcan

The Caxcan were a partly nomadic indigenous people of Mexico. Under their leader, Francisco Tenamaztle, the Caxcan were allied with the Zacatecos against the Spaniards during the Mixtón Rebellion. During the rebellion, they were described as "the heart and the center of the Indian Rebellion". They...

 and they were from the valley in Tuitlán, which is now found in the municipality

Municipality

A municipality is essentially an urban administrative division having corporate status and usually powers of self-government. It can also be used to mean the governing body of a municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district...

 of Villa Nueva Zacatecas. The Caxcan established Nochistlán by driving out the Tecuexe by force.

Location

• Latitude 21°21'49" N
• Longitude 102°50'40" W
• Population 67,365