The state of Nayarit lies along 180 miles of Pacific Ocean coastline, and stretches inland into the western Sierra Madre Mountains. In the centralized politics of Mexico, Nayarit was an afterthought. Following Mexican Independence, the small territory remained part of the state of Jalisco for a century. Even when it was separated from its larger neighbor, Nayarit remained a military district. Only in 1917 was it made autonomous—becoming the fifth smallest of Mexico’s thirty-one states. Its population didn’t top one million people until 2010. The state is surrounded by some of Mexico’s behemoth
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