Short answers, pulled from the story.
The historic center of Santiago de Querétaro was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. UNESCO later named the city a Design City in 2017, and National Geographic Traveler listed it among the top fifteen historic destinations in the world in 2008.
The name Querétaro most likely derives from the Purepecha phrase k'eri ireta rho, meaning place of the great people. In the Otomi language the city is called Maxei or Ndamaxei, both referring to ball games, while Pre-Columbian usage also yields the reading the island of the blue salamanders. The word was voted the most beautiful word in the Spanish language by 33,000 participants and validated by the Instituto Cervantes.
Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez, wife of the mayor of Querétaro, used her prominent position to gather intelligence for the independence movement and hosted political gatherings at what is now the Palacio de la Corregidora. When the Conspiracy of 1810 was discovered and she was arrested, she still managed to warn Miguel Hidalgo, who then delivered the famous grito at Dolores. She was imprisoned multiple times between 1810 and 1817 and later became the first woman to appear on a Mexican coin.
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War and ceded nearly half of Mexico's territory, was signed in Querétaro in 1848. The Gadsden Purchase was also negotiated in the city in 1854. The Political Constitution of the United Mexican States, still Mexico's governing law, was enacted at a Constituent Congress held here on the 5th of February 1917.
Querétaro's economy is anchored by IT and data centers, logistics, aircraft manufacturing and maintenance, the automotive and machinery industries, call centers, and chemical and food production. Its metropolitan area has a per capita GDP of US$20,000, second highest among Mexico's metropolitan areas after Monterrey. Tourism accounts for 21 percent of the gross product of the city proper, and wine production in the state ranks second in Mexico after Baja California.
The aqueduct of Querétaro was built by the Marquis Juan Antonio de Urrutia y Arana between 1726 and 1738 at the request of the nuns of the Santa Clara Convent. It consists of seventy-four arches, each twenty meters wide, stretches 1,280 meters in total, and stands at an average height of 23 meters, carrying water from La Cañada to the city's residents.