Tijuana lies just in the... by daBertl
Tijuana lies just in the northwest corner of Baja California along the Pacific Ocean and the Mexico-U.S. border, 12 miles south of San Diego, California. From being a ranch settled on part of a land grant in 1862, Tijuana developed as a border resort with gambling casinos and related activities during the 1920s as a consequence of the prohibition in the U.S. Its fast recent growth, however, is due to steady industrialization. In fact, Tijuana's population has been growing up since 1950, rather accelerating from 1970 to 1995, a period in which the city population grew at an annual rate of 5.0%. In 2000, city population added up 1,212,232, 48.7% of Baja California total. Tijuana is the site for the largest concentration of maquiladora firms in the state and the country. By May 1996, 516 plants provided jobs for 108,282 persons. Many of the most important U.S. and Asian firms run plants located in the city?s industrial districts, where an extensive variety of electrical household appliances, such as videocasssete, recorders and televisions, are assembled. Due to this amazing economic transformation, Tijuana is nowadays known as 'TV City', in fact, the biggest TV manufacturer center in the world.
Tijuana economic activity also flourishes with trade, tourism and other services. An slogan for it is 'the most visited city in the world'; in 1995, its borderline was crossed over more than 50 million times.