Salamanca (Mexico)

Salamanca , city (1990 pop. 206,275), Guanajuato state, W central Mexico. Chiefly an oil center, it also serves as the commercial and distribution point for the surrounding agricultural region. The city lies on major national highway and rail systems. The first important battle between liberals and conservatives in the 19th-century War of the Reform (see Mexico ) was fought at Salamanca.

Salamanca, Chile, Mexico, Panama, Spain, USA 1. Spain (Castile‐León): founded c.400 bc by Celt‐Iberians, it was later called Helmantika by the Greeks; later variations were Hermandica and Salamántica. In due course it became part of the Roman province of Lusitania and was referrred to as Polis Megale ‘Great City’. Its present name, however, may be a tribute to Salmantica, a Greek historian who lived in the city.2. USA (New York): founded as Bucktooth in 1854 and renamed in 1862 after a Spanish banker with this name, because he was a major stockholder in the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad and had visited the town a little earlier.