Albuquerque

Albuquerque, city, central New Mexico, United States. The largest city in New Mexico, it is a transport, trade, and manufacturing centre located on the Rio Grande. Manufactured goods include electrical machinery, processed foods, aerospace and defence equipment, textiles, clothing, printed materials, and forestry products. The city is also an electronic, nuclear, and defence research centre; one of the largest single employers is a nuclear and solar energy development firm. Nearby Kirtland Air Force Base (site of the National Atomic Museum) is important to the economy, and many state and federal agencies have offices in the city.

Albuquerque is the seat of the University of New Mexico (1889), Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute, and the College of Santa Fe at Albuquerque. It is also headquarters for Cibola National Forest. Situated at an elevation of about 1,615 m (5,300 ft), the city is a noted health resort and holiday spot. It has museums of art, natural history, and anthropology, and its Old Town retains a Spanish atmosphere with broad plazas, flat-roofed adobe houses, and colonial buildings. Nearby are the Sandia Mountains; several Native American pueblos, notably at Coronado State Monument; and Petroglyph State Park, with old Native American and Spanish carvings on lava.

European settlement began in the early 17th century, although the Spanish abandoned the area after the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. Founded in 1706, the city was named after the duke of Alburquerque (the first r was later dropped), then viceroy of New Spain. It grew rapidly as a station on the Chihuahua Trail from Santa Fe to Mexico City. After the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), Albuquerque became part of the United States, and was an important military post from 1846 to 1870. In 1880 a new town was laid out nearby to meet the railway. It grew as a farming hub and health centre, gradually enveloping Old Town, which it annexed in 1949. Rapid growth in the 1950s was propelled by federal spending on nuclear research. In the 1970s Albuquerque underwent an extensive urban renewal programme, and in the late 1980s the city completed expansion of its convention centre and airport. Population 504,949 (2006).