How we work
Methodology
Mission
WikiPueblosMágicos is an independent tourism intelligence platform for Mexico's 177 Pueblos Mágicos. We aggregate verified data, real-time metrics, and crowdsourced reports to help travelers and governments make informed decisions.
Data layers
Each metric on this site comes from one of three layers. We label them so you always know what you are looking at.
Verified facts
Static, authoritative attributes sourced from government agencies and canonical references.
- Town identity: name, state, coordinates, population, altitude, climate, nearest city
- Pueblo Mágico designation year
- Nearest-city distances (calculated from official coordinates)
- Updated when source authorities change
Sources: SECTUR, Wikipedia's Anexo:Pueblos_mágicos, INEGI
Scraped metrics
Live signals from public web sources, collected via automated scraping and shown with a last-updated timestamp.
- Google ratings and review counts
- TripAdvisor ratings and reviews
- Airbnb average nightly price and listing count
- Booking.com ratings and hotel counts
- Monthly search volume (SERP data)
- Each metric shown with last-scraped timestamp
Sources: public web data via automated scraping
Crowdsourced reports
On-the-ground reports from travelers. No account required, but rate-limited to prevent spam.
- Infrastructure checklist: yes/no votes (ATM, pharmacy, cell signal, etc.)
- Condition reports: crowd level, cleanliness, safety, wifi, food price
- Anonymous — no account required
- Rate-limited: 1 vote per item per traveler per day
- Aggregated by month and season for temporal context
Source: travelers like you
Scoring formula
The composite score (0–10) combines normalized signals from seven sources, including traveler-verified infrastructure availability. It is recalculated on every scrape and the full formula is published here so it can be audited.
Weights
- Google rating — 20%
- TripAdvisor rating — 20%
- Booking rating — 15%
- Avg. night price — 5%
- Search volume — 20%
- Total review count — 10%
- Services availability (UGC) — 10%
If a source is missing we redistribute its weight across the remaining signals, so every town is scored on what is actually known about it.
Update frequency
- Verified facts
- As SECTUR or authoritative sources update.
- Scraped metrics
- Periodically, typically weekly.
- Crowdsourced
- Real-time, aggregated by month.
Corrections applied after our factcheck
We cross-check every town against canonical sources. These are the corrections we have applied so far.
- Guanajuato (state capital) is NOT a Pueblo Mágico — state capitals are excluded from the program. Removed from our list.
- San Miguel de Allende was a PM from 2002–2008, then lost status upon UNESCO World Heritage designation. Removed.
- Tepoztlán: corrected designation year 2002 → 2001.
- Amealco de Bonfil: corrected 2020 → 2018.
- The full factcheck trail is available in git history.
External data sources
We aggregate and cross-reference public data from the following third-party sources. Every fact on this site can be traced back to one of these.
- What we use it for
- Official list of Pueblos Mágicos, designation years, program rules.
- Update frequency
- Checked when SECTUR publishes program updates.
- What we use it for
- Population figures and geographic coordinates for each town.
- Update frequency
- Census cycle (every 5 years); interpolated between releases.
- What we use it for
- Cross-reference for descriptions, historical context, designation years.
- Update frequency
- Fetched on first publish; refreshed opportunistically.
- What we use it for
- Canonical bilingual names, Spanish descriptions, regional specifics.
- Update frequency
- Fetched on first publish; refreshed opportunistically.
- What we use it for
- Free-licensed town photos used across listing and detail pages.
- Update frequency
- One-time fetch per town, re-checked when images break.
- What we use it for
- Base map tiles for the interactive explorer and pueblo maps.
- Update frequency
- Continuous — tiles served live from OpenFreeMap.
- What we use it for
- Star ratings and review counts per town, aggregated public data.
- Update frequency
- Scraped periodically, typically weekly; timestamp shown.
- What we use it for
- Ratings and ranking signals for each town.
- Update frequency
- Scraped periodically, typically weekly; timestamp shown.
- What we use it for
- Hotel ratings and average nightly prices.
- Update frequency
- Scraped periodically, typically weekly; timestamp shown.
- What we use it for
- Short-term rental supply and average nightly prices.
- Update frequency
- Scraped periodically, typically weekly; timestamp shown.
- What we use it for
- Official match schedule, host cities, and stadium identities.
- Update frequency
- Checked as FIFA publishes schedule updates.
Data access for researchers and LLMs
All aggregate data on this site is publicly accessible. Please cite us if you use it.
- API: GET /api/public/towns.json — CORS-enabled, cached 1 hour
- Sitemap: /sitemap.xml
- LLMs: /llms.txt
How to cite
WikiPueblosMágicos.mx — Tourism intelligence for Mexico's Pueblos Mágicos. Retrieved [date].