Among the 34 temples announced this year by President Russell M. Nelson are three locations in Mexico: Querétaro and Torreón during the April general conference, and Culiacán earlier this month.
These will be the 15th, 16th and 17th temples in Mexico, joining 13 dedicated to date plus the Puebla Mexico Temple under construction since November 2019. The first was the Mexico City Mexico Temple, dedicated in 1983. The Tijuana Mexico Temple is the most recently dedicated, in 2015. Nine of the 13 temples were dedicated in 2000.
Mexico is home to 1.5 million Latter-day Saints, second only to the United States.
One of every 148 residents of Mexico is a member of the Church, according to statistics posted on the Church’s Newsroom.
Mexico has more than 200 stakes and about 1,850 wards and branches. A stake was created in Colonia Juarez in 1895, primarily serving Church members who moved to the area from Utah and Arizona. The first primarily Spanish-speaking stake was in Mexico City, organized in 1961.
Missionary work opened in Mexico in 1875.
Querétaro
• The city has a population of about 1 million in a metropolitan area of about 1.5 million people, making it one of the 10 largest metro areas in the country. It is the capital city and largest city in the state of Querétaro, located in central Mexico. The state population is about 2.4 million.
• Querétaro is about 135 miles northwest of Mexico City.
• The area is part of the Mexico City Mexico Temple district, which comprises 92 stakes.
• The under-construction Puebla Mexico Temple is also part of the current Mexico City temple district. Puebla is 80 miles southeast of Mexico City.
• There are three stakes in Querétaro, organized in 1995, 2000 and 2012. Guanajuato, the state to the west of Querétaro, has three stakes, and there are two stakes in San Luis Potosí, a city 130 miles to the north.
Torreón
• The city has a population of about 735,000 in a metropolitan area of about 1.5 million people, making it one of the 10 largest metro areas in the country. It is the second-largest city in the state of Coahuila. The state’s population is little over 3 million.
• Torreón is about 400 miles south of the Texas border, about equidistant between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean.
• The area is now part of the Monterrey Mexico Temple district. That temple is a little more than 200 miles to the east. The temple district comprises 26 stakes and six districts.
• There are three stakes in Torreón and two in neighboring Gómez Palacio. The first was organized in 1976. The city of Durango, about 150 miles away, has two stakes.
• The Church announced on Sept. 23 that the Torreón Mexico Temple will be built on a 0.89-acre site at the corner of Paris and Amsterdam streets in the City of Gomez Palacio, a suburb west of Torreón. Plans call for a single-story temple of approximately 10,000 square feet, which is about the size of most of the Church’s 40 smallest temples, such as Reno Nevada, Palmyra New York and Guadalajara Mexico.
Culicán
• The official name of the city is Culiacán Rosales. It has a population of around 850,000, and the metropolitan area has about 1 million. It is the capital of and largest city in the state of Sinaloa, which has about 3 million people.
• Culiacán is about 600 miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border, 750 miles northwest of Mexico City and 40 miles east of the Pacific Ocean’s Gulf of California.
• The area is now part of the Hermosillo Sonora Mexico Temple district. That temple is about 430 miles to the northwest. It is also about the same distance to the Guadalajara Mexico Temple and the planned Torreón Mexico Temple.
• The Hermosillo Sonora temple district comprises nine stakes and seven districts.
• Sinaloa has five stakes: three in Culiacán, one in Los Mochis and one in Mazatlan. The first was organized in 1977.
More about temples announced around the world
- Recently announced temple plans in Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico
- Learn about Utah, Nevada cities with recently announced temples
- Learn about the European areas where new temples were announced earlier this year
- Learn about the African areas where new temples were announced during April general conference
