New Mexico's most visited cities

A Partial List of Cities and Towns in New Mexico

For cities not listed on this page please visit our Regions Page Here.

Albuquerque, the largest city in the state of New Mexico, straddles the Rio Grande. It is home to the University of New Mexico (UNM), Kirtland Air Force Base and the Sandia National Laboratories and Petroglyph National Monument.

Chama

Chama is a village in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, and is the western terminus of the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Narrow-Gauge Railroad, which runs to Antonito Colorado, 64 miles to the East. It is a small village, but tourism is starting to help the town's economy.

Carlsbad

Carlsbad is located in the Chihuahuan Desert and the Pecos River Valley. Carlsbad Caverns National Park is located eighteen miles (29 km) southwest of the city, with Guadalupe Mountains National Park lying forty miles further southwest across the Texas border. There are also three man-made lakes within fifty miles of the city, including Lake Carlsbad.

Deming

Deming was an important port of entry on the US-Mexican border until the Gadsden Purchase of 1853. There are numerous ancient Native American sites around Deming. The Mimbres and Casas Grandes cultures made pottery of remarkable quality, and the Deming area is rich in Native American artifacts.

Farmington

Farmington is located at the junction of the San Juan, Animas, and La Plata rivers, on the Colorado Plateau in the northwest part of the San Juan Basin. It serves as a hub for much of northwestern New Mexico and the Four Corners region.

Gallup

Gallup was founded in 1891 as a railhead for the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad. It is sometimes called the "Indian Capital of the World", for its location in the heart of Native American lands, and the presence of Navajo, Zuni, Hopi and other tribes.

Los Alamos

Los Alamos is home to the Los Alamos National Laboratory, which was founded to undertake the Manhattan Project. Before the Manhattan Project, the site was occupied by the Los Alamos Ranch School.

Las Cruces

Las Cruces is the center of an agricultural region irrigated by the Rio Grande, which flows just west of the city. The city is the home of New Mexico State University.

Las Vegas

Las Vegas is laid out in the traditional Spanish Colonial style, with a central plaza surrounded by buildings. Once a railroad hub, turn-of-the-century Las Vegas featured all the modern amenities, including an electric street railway, the "Duncan Opera House" at the NE corner of 6th Street and Douglas Avenue, a Carnegie library, a major Harvey House hotel, and the New Mexico Normal School.

Raton

Raton is a Spanish word for a "small rat" or "mouse". Raton Pass had been used by Spanish explorers and Indians for centuries to cut through the rugged Rocky Mountains.

Roswell

Roswell is most popularly known for having its name attached to what is now called the 1947 Roswell UFO incident, even though the crash site of the alleged UFO was some seventy-five miles from Roswell and closer to Corona. The investigation and debris recovery was handled by the local Roswell Army Air Field.

Ruidoso

A mountain resort town, Ruidoso lies in the rugged Sierra Blanca mountain range of southcentral New Mexico. It is home to the Ruidoso Downs racetrack and Ski Apache, the Mescalero Apache Indian owned ski resort.

Santa Fe

Known for the arts and it's tri-culture society, the city of Santa Fe was originally occupied by a number of Pueblo Indian villages with founding dates between 1050 to 1150.

Silver City

The site of Silver City was originally served as an Apache campsite. Later it gained fame when silver was discovered there. Today it is a charming mountain town.

Socorro

Socorro, situated in the Rio Grande Valley, was named for the aid that the Piro Indians gave Juan de Oñate and a group of Spanish settlers who had traveled through the Jornada del Muerto.

Taos

Taos is located close to Taos Pueblo, the Native American village and tribe from which it takes its name, it is also the county seat of Taos County. The name also refers to the nearby ski resort of Taos Ski Valley. The English name Taos derives from the Native Taos language meaning "place of red willows".

Truth or Consequences

Truth or Consequences is a spa city originally called "Hot Springs". It took the name of a popular radio program in 1950, when Truth or Consequences host Ralph Edwards announced that he would do the program from the first town that renamed itself after the show.

Tucumcari

In 1901, the Chicago Rock Island and Pacific Railroad built a construction camp in the western portion of modern-day Quay County. Owing to numerous gunfights, the camp became known as Six Shooter Siding. Later, it was renamed Tucumcari after the Tucumcari Mountain.