Tijuana is the largest city in the Mexican state of Baja California, located across the border from the American city of San Diego, California. It was founded in 1829 as a Mexican rancho, and its name derived from an earlier Spanish Roman Catholic mission named for its location along the sea (Tiwan in the local tongue). Urban settlement began in 1889, and it became popular among American tourists over the next several decades, especially during Prohibition, when Americans came to Tijuana to drink alcohol legally. Tijuana's population boomed from 21,971 in 1940 to 65,364 in 1950, and it became a manufacturing center during the 1960s and 1970s. By 1980, it had almost 500,000 residents, and its population grew to 1 million in 1985. The 1980s and 1990s saw a rise in crime in Tijuana as it became the site of violent clashes between rival drug cartels, such as the wars between the Guadalajara Cartel and Alberto Sicilia Falcon's plaza in 1984 and between the Sinaloa Cartel and the Arellano Felix family's Tijuana Cartel from 1989 to 2003. After 9/11, tightened border controls and the start of the Mexican Drug War decreased American tourism in Tijuana, but it recovered some of its earlier tourism during the 2010s. By 2019, Tijuana had a population of 1,902,385 people, with 2,348,609 living in the urban area and 2,096,784 in the metro area. It had one of the largest Asian populations in Mexico, and it became known as a racially diverse city.
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