The city is located on country's central plateau (altiplano), 50 km (31 mi) southeast of state capital, Santiago de Querétaro, at 20°23′N 99°59′W / 20.383°N 99.983°W / 20.383; -99.983 with an elevation of 1922 m. Although famous for its opals, mined at nearby La Trinidad, it is also an agricultural center (corn, wheat, sugarcane, beans, alfalfa, fruit, and livestock).

San Juan del Río is connected to Santiago de Querétaro and Mexico City by the mainline freight railway and Federal Highway 57.

The city was founded on the Feast of Saint John the Baptist June 24, 1531, by Fernando de Tapia, an Otomí chieftain that converted to Catholicism and dropped his Native name Conín.

San Juan del Río was founded as a village of Indians on the day June 24 Thyrean bonfires of 1531 (although for some authors, such as Agustín Ruiz Olloqui the true date of the foundation is June 24, 1526, which appears in a document of the colony dealing about water and which currently remains in the Municipal Historical Archive), and was named for that day being the feast of San Juan Bautista, and because it remained on the banks of a flowing river, it usually had the suffix, "Of The River".

The Village of San Juan del Río, the head of its Jurisdiction, is founded on a hillside near the North and Westeros that tops in a broken valley, which is surrounded by all parts of hills.

One of the first urban elements of community use was the construction of the bridge over the San Juan River, which practically left the population not being able to communicate with each other during the rainy season.

This case concerned both the San Juanan population and the interests of the vice royal government, mainly because it was a place of transit and rest for the constant travelers with silver shipments, who came from the North to Mexico City.

The bridge that alleviated the problem is attributed to Fray Sebastián de Aparicio and was built in 1561 (today Benito Juárez avenue, in front of the municipal pantheon).

In addition to this relevant urban element, churches, temples, and convents began to gain ground with their respective ideological influence.

The other street layout coincides with the Spanish practice of that time "a cordel", whose urban element and union was the temple for Spaniards of San Juan Bautista.

In 1672, the Hospital and Convent of San Juan de Dios were founded, for the care of the sick in the city and the visitors who stopped in its path, today this building is occupied worthily by the Autonomous University of Querétaro.

During the period 1960–1970, San Juan del Río began its urban, economic and social transformation of the strong impetus given to the industrializing, commercial and communications process; factors that have currently placed this municipality as the second in importance in the State of Querétaro.

[1][2] On June 24, 1984, the Honorable City Council of San Juan del Río headed by the engineer Leopoldo Peralta Navarrete, in The Solemn Session of Cabildo declares the new Official Shield.

The result of the design was a call that was launched for this purpose of which the painter Héctor Raúl Rojas López was the winner who, in that same session, was named The Favorite Son of San Juan del Río.

The coat of arms of San Juan del Río is a composite, Spanish-style one, which as well as Portuguese and Flanders-flamenco (countries that received Spanish influx) is rounded at the base in the shape of an inverted half-point arch.

The lower environment is divided, in turn, into two barracks that represent the moment before evangelization: to the sinister is located the Otomi rode that symbolizes our pre-Hispanic roots when the Spaniards arrived in Iztacchichimecapan (ancient name of San Juan del Río) to conquest.

This river, when leaving the municipality of Tequisquiapan, already with the name of Río Moctezuma forms the natural boundary between the states of Querétaro and Hidalgo and already flows as Rio Pánuco into the Golfo de México in the port of Tampico.

The "Mezquital" area is composed of small trees and large shrubs, such as mesquite, piru or pirul, gobystick, cat's claw, reed, huisache, garambullo, granjeno, and nopal; also the desert-type plants, such as the biznaga and organs.

On February 21, 2012, the universal coverage plate of popular insurance was unveiled, days after the inauguration of this San Juan del Río General Hospital, with the presence of the President of the Republic Felipe Calderón Hinojosa and in the company of Governor José Calzada.

The hospital currently has a wide variety of specialties, as well as the highest technology equipment and extensive facilities and enough to provide the health service to the entire population that requires it.

The animals that live in the Municipality of San Juan del Río are horses, donkeys, bulls, pigs, coyotes, wolves, foxes, cacomiztles, raccoons, tlacuaches, squirrels, ferrets, ounces, armadillos.

Guajolotes, chickens; in the swamps, we find bargains and crouches, long-ass pigeons, doves, quails; in cold times ducks and migrant geese; chicks, stingers, bone breakers, tordos, crows, zopilotes, cenzontles, cuitlacars, jilgueros, clarinets, calandrias, cardinals, blue and gray sparrows, verdines and Dominicans.

The building that houses this museum is a house built in the eighteenth century, former Prison and Municipal Prefecture; now rescued as a tourist and cultural attraction, where different areas are integrated for the dissemination of culture, the Municipal Historical Archive, the Public Library "Juan María Wenceslao Sánchez de la Barquera y Morales", the Bookshop "Dr. Rafael Ayala Echavarri", Gallery, and a Multipurpose Courtyard.

The opals are masterfully worked by local artisans, among them we can mention the Cabrera family who is forty-four years old in the exercise of the beautiful art of the stoning.

In the traditional portals, Ladies are installed who sell elaborate hooked folders, as well as napkins with fraying; while in the artisan market you can buy various pieces of pottery, metals, and quarry tilling in the region.

The festivities of San Juan, have been suspended very rarely, as was during the Revolution in 1911, in 1917 for security reasons, in 1918 on the occasion of an epidemic of Spanish influence, and more recently in 1967.

In 1928, on the occasion of the patron saint festivities, the Bullring, Rodolfo Gaona, built by the Municipal President, Don José Serrano, was inaugurated.

During the following years, the festivities continued to develop in the city center, including the dances of the coronation of the Queen in the Hall of Cabildo of the Municipal Presidency.

Manuel Suárez Muñoz, in which the Poet Ernesto Moreno Madruca triumphed, with the composition "To invoke your love", receiving the Flower A native of S.G.M.

Mary Cruz I and serving as a maintainer by Mr. Manuel Montes Collantes, with this began the most important cultural event of the city, which would gather throughout its trajectory, the most recognized poets and writers, national, queretanos and SanJuanenses, highlighting among the latter Don Pablo Cabrera.