Pueblo

Pueblo refers to the settlements of the Pueblo peoples, Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States, currently in New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. The permanent communities, including some of the oldest continually occupied settlements in the United States, are called pueblos (lowercased).

Spanish explorers of northern New Spain used the term pueblo to refer to permanent Indigenous towns they found in the region, mainly in New Mexico and parts of Arizona, in the former province of Nuevo México. This term continued to be used to describe the communities housed in apartment structures built of stone, adobe, and other local material.^[1] The structures were usually multistoried buildings surrounding an open plaza. Many rooms were accessible only through ladders raised and lowered by the inhabitants, thus protecting them from break-ins and unwanted guests. Larger pueblos are occupied by hundreds to thousands of Puebloan people.

Several federally recognized tribes have historically resided in pueblos of such design. Later Pueblo Deco and modern Pueblo Revival architecture, which mixes elements of traditional Pueblo and Hispano design, has continued to be a popular architectural style in New Mexico, expanding to surrounding states over time.

The term is part of the official name of some historical sites, such as Pueblo of Acoma.