The Bajío (the lowland) is a cultural and geographical region within the central Mexican plateau which roughly spans from northwest of Mexico City to the main silver mines in the northern-central part of the country.

The tribes that inhabited El Bajío proved to be some of the hardest to conquer for the Spanish—peace was ultimately achieved via truce and negotiation—but due to its strategic location in the Silver Route, it also drew prominent attention from the Spanish crown and some of the flagship Mexican colonial cities were built there, such as Guanajuato and Zacatecas.

[7] The Bajío rose to world prominence during the three centuries of colonial rule, providing much of the mineral and agricultural wealth of the Spanish Empire.

Recent archeological studies have discovered an extensive historic cultural tradition that is unique to the region, particularly along the flood plains of the Lerma and the Laja Rivers.

The Bajio from pre-Columbian times is best remembered from the Chichimeca nations, the name given by the Mexicas to a group of indigenous chiefdoms without clear states, boundaries or dwelling places, who inhabited the center and north of the country,[10][8] such as Guachichiles, Guamares, Pames, Tecuexes, among others.

The Chichimeca War confronted the Holy Roman Empire and Habsburg Europe at large under Charles V against the native chiefdoms of the Caxcans, the Zacatecs, the Guamares and other nomadic Uto-Nahuan peoples, with the goal of conquering their lands and exploiting silver discovered between 1540 and 1590.

The discovery of the mines of Zacatecas and Guanajuato, on the other hand, caused a high arrival of Spanish and Tlaxcaltec people to the area, which led to the founding of towns such as San Miguel el Grande (1542), Celaya (1571), Zamora (1574) Aguascalientes (1575) and León (1576), Durango, Chihuahua, Santa Fe Nuevo México: the so-called Silver Route of the Spanish treasure fleet.

[11] Meanwhile, king Philip II of Spain orchestrated most of the Counter-Reformation in Europe and the Fourth Ottoman–Venetian War in large part with the wealth provided by settlers, indigenous people and African slaves from the American colonial enterprise centered at the Bajío.

),[11] an institutional format also very present in cities and towns in the Bajío in the form of schools, colleges and seminaries (see List of colonial universities in Hispanic America).

[11] Miguel Hidalgo, Ignacio Allende, the Aldama brothers, Josefa Ortíz de Domínguez, José María Morelos among other figures of the early phase of Mexican Independence were born and lived in the Bajío.

Maximilian of Austria (emperor of Mexico) was captured, tried and sentenced, being shot on June 19 at Cerro de las Campanas, along with the Mexican generals Miguel Miramón and Tomás Mejía.

In the Bajío in April 1915, during the Mexican Revolution, General Álvaro Obregón provoked decisive battles against Pancho Villa, whose troops lost in June that year outside the city of Celaya, in the State of Guanajuato.

The Cristeros were able to quickly articulate a series of local rebellions against the "Sonora Group", a name created after the Sonoran presidents Adolfo de la Huerta, Álvaro Obregón and Plutarco Elías Calles.

[15] With an area over 50 000 km2, and a moderately variable topology, distinct subregions within the Bajío can offer microclimates ranging from the temperate to the humid subtropical or dry steppes.

[19] Due to its colonial heritage, the Bajío is home to around eight UNESCO World Heritage Sites (depending on how its limits are defined): El Bajio has long been a hub for the national industrial market, because it naturally sits between Mexico's three main cities: Mexico City to the south, Guadalajara to the west and Monterrey to the northeast.

[20] The region has attracted foreign companies due to its relative proximity to the United States, second only in American manufacturing plants to the Mexico-US border.

The main investor was Japan, although the United States, South Korea, Germany, France, Italy and Spain also have important presence in the area.

Guanajuato (León-Silao and Celaya) hosts General Motors, Pirelli, Honda, Toyota, Mazda, Denso, Mitsubishi, and Sumitomo plants.