Founded in 1576, San Luis Potosi was strategically important in colonial times and during the wars of the republican period. The patriot Francisco I. Madero, who was briefly imprisoned in the city in 1910, later named his revolutionary call to arms the Plan of San Luis Potosi. The city center has narrow cobbled streets and solid colonial architecture, but outlying areas are modern. Among its major landmarks are the San Francisco convent and Carmelite churches.

