Reino de Nueva Vizcaya

Nueva Vizcaya was the first province the Spanish organized in the north of New Spain, explored and settled from the 1560s by Francisco de Ibarra, who named it after his homeland of Vizcaya (Biscay) in Spain’s Basque Country. Its capital was the city of Durango.

It covered roughly the present-day states of Chihuahua and Durango, along with parts of Sinaloa and Coahuila. Don’t confuse it with Nueva Galicia, the colonial kingdom centered on Guadalajara.