Walking along the emblematic Paseo de Montejo, where the Monumento a la Patria is located, a Cultural Heritage Treasure of Mérida, you can observe the beautiful façades from the French era. You will also notice that the buses, banners, and flyers announce Mérida as the American Cultural Capital 2017. The program that will be taking place throughout the year is huge, full of premier events, with artists from all over the world that will delight the city and surrounding neighborhoods with music, dance, theater, literature, visual arts, and even a festival of lights.

Since 2000, when Mérida was named as the first American Cultural Capital, the city hasn’t stopped growing its cultural focus. It even became the very first city to have a Cultural Rights Letter that guarantees culture for everyone, offering more than 12,000 events during the year, programmed by different government sectors and dozens of independent entities.

Having a glass of wine or a beer in Mérida’s Centro places you in a variety of settings that are more than a century old, with the most modern Bohemian decor, accompanied by trova, Cuban, rock, or electronic music. In Mérida all the activities, including the most common, are full of art.

To be named Cultural Capital for the second occasion means having all the cultural efforts created by the municipality in one year-long program. This means that both residents and visitors have access to all kinds of culture, from entertainment to academic and experimental styles. In this way, culture has an equalizing effect on everyone, while at the same time cultivating diversity, thereby increasing humanity’s richness.

Free top quality shows are taking place in every museum, park, gallery, and theater of the city. The very best of the cultural scene from Mérida, México, the Americas, and the world will be performing during the year in the ancient city of “T’hó,” whether in a public plaza or inside the José Peón Contreras Theater, art cathedral and Cultural Heritage Treasure of Mérida.

This year Mérida celebrates not only that it is a cultural reference and its progress as such, but also its 475th anniversary. Mérida, “the very noble and loyal,” the “White City,” the same city that moves to the beat of its traditions with a modern touch. Mérida, the twice named American Cultural Capital.

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