San Antonio Missions
The number of Wikipedia languages with an article is our measure of how widely known a site is. Counts of visitors and wishes will appear once enough people use the app.
Seals, want-to-go and the year you stood here are recorded in the iPhone app.
How it came to be
In 1716 Spain set up several missions in East Texas, but the nearest Spanish settlement was more than 400 miles away and supplying them was hard. The new governor, Martín de Alarcón, decided to found a waystation. In April 1718 his expedition built the mission of San Antonio de Valero near the headwaters of the San Antonio River. A presidio and a civilian settlement were founded nearby, the start of today's city of San Antonio.
A chain of missions followed along the river. The World Heritage site takes in five missions spread over about 12.4 km of the river, plus the Rancho de las Cabras, 37 km to the south. Each had a church, granaries, workshops, fields and irrigation channels, and was meant to support itself. UNESCO says Coahuiltecans and other hunter-gatherers became settled farmers within about one generation. Church decoration mixes Catholic symbols with native designs drawn from nature.
Mission Valero was secularized in 1793 and became a fort, and on 6 March 1836 it was the scene of the Battle of the Alamo. Mass is still said in the other four mission churches. A national historical park was created in 1978, and the missions were inscribed in 2015.
Data: Wikidata (CC0). Photos: Wikimedia Commons, under each photo’s license. Prototype; may contain errors. We measure usage anonymously to improve the app (PostHog, EU).