Yuririapundaro

Yuririapundaro, later known as Yuriria, stands beside a lake in the highlands of central Mexico. Its great Augustinian convent rises above the settlement, a striking monument of the early colonial period. The friars also undertook a major work of water management, linking the Lerma River to the basin through the Taramatacheo channel.

Fray Diego de Chávez arrived in 1548 and directed the construction of both the great religious complex and the waterworks. The channel was opened in 1550, bringing water into the lagoon of Yuriria; the convent was built during the same busy decade and inaugurated in 1559. Together they reshaped the landscape around the town, joining a missionary foundation to an ambitious effort to control and use the waters of the Lerma.