[7] Juárez lies on the Rio Grande (Río Bravo del Norte) river, south of El Paso, Texas, United States.

Combined, these bridges allowed 22,958,472 crossings in 2008,[9] making Ciudad Juárez a major point of entry and transportation into the U.S. for all of central northern Mexico.

According to a 2007 New York Times article, Ciudad Juárez was "absorbing more new industrial real estate space than any other North American city".

[10] As 17th-century Spanish explorers sought a route through the southern Rocky Mountains, the Franciscan Friar García de San Francisco founded Ciudad Juárez in 1659 as "El Paso del Norte" ("The North Pass").

The original population of Mansos, Suma, Jumano, and other natives from the south brought by the Spanish from Central New Spain grew around the mission.

The main channel of the Rio Grande had moved southwestward leaving the settlements of Ysleta, Socorro, and San Elzeario on the Camino Real on the north bank of the river, isolated from the rest of the towns, in Texas.

During the French intervention in Mexico (1862–1867), Benito Juárez's republican forces stopped temporarily at El Paso del Norte before establishing his government-in-exile in Chihuahua.

The city expanded significantly thanks to Porfirio Díaz's free-trade policy, creating a new retail and service sector along the old Calle del Comercio (now Vicente Guerrero) and September 16 Avenue.

To this must be added the worldwide devaluation of silver and water scarcity, which generated a severe economic crisis in the city, causing a significant number of workers to flee to the United States.

As a result of the collapse of commercial activities and population, Ciudad Juárez focused on tourism as an economic activity at the beginning of the 20th century, particularly promoting "diversions", thus beginning "the moment of scandal"[12] In 1909, Díaz and William Howard Taft planned a summit in Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, a historic first meeting between a Mexican and a U.S. president, and also the first time a U.S. president would cross the border into Mexico.

[13] But tensions rose on both sides of the border over the disputed Chamizal strip connecting Ciudad Juárez to El Paso, even though it would have been considered neutral territory with no flags present during the summit.

[15] Frederick Russell Burnham, the celebrated scout, was put in charge of a 250 private security detail hired by John Hays Hammond.

Moore, a Texas Ranger, discovered a man holding a concealed palm pistol standing at the El Paso Chamber of Commerce building along the procession route.

In May 1911, about 3,000 revolutionary fighters under the leadership of Francisco I. Madero laid siege to Ciudad Juárez, which was garrisoned by 500 regular Federal troops under the command of General Juan José Navarro.

The capture of a key border town at an early stage of the revolution not only enabled the revolutionary forces to bring in weapons and supplies from El Paso, but marked the beginning of the end for the demoralized Diaz regime.

[22] During the subsequent years of the conflict, Pancho Villa and other revolutionaries struggled for the control of the town (and income from the Federal Customs House), destroying much of the city during battles in 1911 and 1913.

The cathedral, built in the 1950s, gave the city center the flavor of central Mexico, with its carved towers and elegant dome, but structural problems required its remodeling in the 1970s.

Juárez has grown substantially in recent decades due to a large influx of people moving into the city in search of jobs with the maquiladoras.

As of 2014[update] more technological firms have moved to the city, such as the Delphi Corporation Technical Center, the largest in the Western Hemisphere, which employs over 2,000 engineers.

The end of the Bracero Program also brought workers back from border cities in the U.S. through Ciudad Juárez, contributing to the growing number of citizens.

[33] However, a March 2009 article noted there has been a mass exodus of people who could afford to leave the city due to the ongoing violence from the Mexican Drug War.

An August 2008 GQ article described a dispirited and disorderly atmosphere that permeated the city, caused by multiple factors including drug violence, government corruption and poverty.

[51] Explanations for the rapid decline in violence include the Sinaloa Cartel's success in defeating its rivals,[52] as well as federal, state and local government efforts to combat crime and improve the city's quality of life.

Another holds that a more powerful trafficking network, such as Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán's Sinaloa cartel, might have moved in and restored a kind of "order among thieves.

[56] Technology HUB is a startup incubator working to diversify the city's economy and move the regions low-skill manufacturing industry into an innovation cluster.

Innovation economies are found to be more adaptive to shifting tech and trade conditions and more resilient to the kind of civil unrest that plagued Ciudad Juarez in the past.

[62][63] The El Paso Regional Economic Development Corporation indicated that Ciudad Juárez is the metropolis absorbing "more new industrial real estate space than any other North American city.

CommScope, Electrolux, Bosch, Foxconn, Flextronics, Lexmark, Delphi, Visteon, Johnson Controls, Toro, Lear, Boeing, Cardinal Health, Yazaki, Sumitomo, and Siemens are some of the foreign companies that have chosen Ciudad Juárez for business operations.

[77] Technology Hub is a business incubator that works with regionally based companies, on programs in skill development, and the transition into automation and industry 4.0.

The first bridge to cross the Rio Grande at El Paso del Norte was built in the time of New Spain, over 250 years ago, from wood hauled in from Santa Fe.