Nueva Galicia [key], Spanish colonial administrative region, W Mexico, comprising roughly the present states of Jalisco and Nayarit with S Sinaloa. Conquered (1529–31) by Nuño de Guzmán and later governed by Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, the territory was the scene of the Mixtón War in 1541. In 1548 it was given its own audiencia at Guadalajara. Nominally subject to the viceroy of New Spain, it was essentially a separate administration controlled from Spain, and it came to be known after the creation (1563) of a presidential office of its own as the presidency of Nueva Galicia. Its independent character, however, declined as in the colonial era authority was more and more centralized in Mexico City.
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