Monumento y Museo de la Bandera, Iguala

Iguala is recognized in Mexican historiography as the birthplace of the modern national flag, proclaimed here in 1821 when Agustín de Iturbide and Vicente Guerrero, having agreed to the Plan de Iguala uniting royalist and insurgent forces, adopted a green-white-red tricolor to symbolize the newly proposed nation. The Explanada de la Bandera and its adjoining museum commemorate this event, marking the culmination of the eleven-year War of Independence and the negotiated alliance between former enemies that finally secured Mexico's separation from Spain later that year. The museum's exhibits trace the evolution of the Mexican flag's design from the 1821 tricolor through its 19th- and 20th-century modifications to the current coat of arms, alongside displays on the Plan de Iguala's terms and the broader independence movement's final campaign. The plaza itself, an open civic space rather than a preserved historic structure, has been developed with monuments and flagpoles honoring the 1821 proclamation, while the museum building houses the interpretive exhibits in a more conventional gallery format. Because the events being commemorated are historical rather than architectural, restoration and maintenance here have focused on the plaza's monuments and the museum's exhibit displays rather than any single historic building, keeping the site's presentation contemporary rather than colonial in character.