Santa Rosalía is a city of about 14,000 people (2015) on the Gulf of California coast of the Baja California Peninsula. It's not much of a tourist town and sees few snowbirds.

Understand

Harbor

Santa Rosalía has French influence, particularly in its architecture. The French company El Boleo founded the town in 1884 and exploited copper mines there until they closed in 1954. They built houses and installed the metallic Iglesia de Santa Bárbara, which was designed by Gustave Eiffel.

Climate

The town is the northernmost (and thus closest to the US border) year-round warm locale on the main peninsular highway.

Get in

By boat

• By ferry from Guaymas, Sonora, on the other side of the Gulf of California.

By plane

• 1 Palo Verde Airport (SRL ^IATA) (30 km south of the town in San Bruno). A paved airstrip, it receives daily from Guaymas, and twice a week from Hermosillo, Sonora. (updated Oct 2019)

By car

Santa Rosalía is on the Mexican Federal Highway 1:

• 920 km south of Tijuana
• 200 km north of Loreto
• 550 km north of La Paz.

By bus

• Autobuses Aguila. 3½ hr. From Loreto every 4 hours. M$250-450. (updated Jan 2018)
• Autobuses Aguila. 9 hr. From La Paz every 4 hours. M$700-1300. (updated Jan 2018)

See

Iglesia de Santa Bárbara

Iglesia de Santa Bárbara Interior view

• 1 Iglesia de Santa Bárbara, Álvaro Obregón 20, Centro. A prefabricated iron church that was designed by Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel in 1884, and built in 1887. It was shown at the 1889 Exposition Universelle of Paris, then acquired by the Boleo Mining Company who installed it in Santa Rosalía in late 1897. (updated Jan 2018)
• Unlike many other mining sites, the industrial facilities which are in the middle of the town, were never dismantled. Old locomotives, mining equipment and machinery are visible everywhere. The main mining company offices (La dirección) have been converted into an industrial museum.
• Mesa France is a neighbourhood where you can appreciate the French colonial architectural style. The French mining technicians and officials of the company lived here.

Do

• 1 El Vizcaíno Biosphere Reserve (north of the city). It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the largest wildlife refuge in Mexico with a landmass of almost 25,000 km². The Vizcaíno is the habitat of the Baja California pronghorn,cone of the swiftest mammals on Earth, the desert bighorn sheep, Mule deer, and dozens of resident and migratory birds: the ospreys, cormorants, herons, and gulls, and four species of sea turtles. On the coastline and islets there are many marine mammals, such as northern elephant seals, California sea lions, dolphins, and gray whales. (updated Jan 2018)

Buy

• Playas Negras Store, Carretera Transpeninsular al Sur, ☏ +52 615 688 0433. Daily 09:00-21:00. A collective founded to represent Santa Rosalía's cultural and historical wealth through clothing and souvenirs. Great variety of local shirts, some other souvenirs like keychains and mugs; wine, salsas, dates, marmelades and jewerly. (updated Jun 2021)

Eat

Santa Rosalía is famous in the state of Baja California Sur for making bread. The bakeries of yesteryear are: "El Bachicha" and "Boleo"; these bakeries receive this fame for the implementation of stone ovens in the production of bread.

Go next

Routes through Santa Rosalia

Ensenada ← Guerrero Negro ←

N  S

→ Mulegé → La Paz