Mina is town and municipality located at northwestern part of the northeastern Mexican state of Nuevo León. The population was 4,309 at the 2005 census. Its name honors Spaniard insurgent general Francisco Javier Mina, who fought for the Mexican side in the independence movement from Spain. Located at the northwestern part of the state of Nuevo León. Mina is a renowned touristic place for its mysticism and legends in the state of Nuevo León.

The municipality is part of a historical region called Valle de Salinas (Spanish for 'Salinas Valley') which was an administrative area of the New Kingdom of León during the Spanish colonial period. It was founded in 1608 by Canarian captain Bernabé de las Casas along with other Spanish and Canarian's settlers establishing the San Francisco de Cañas settlement (Named for Saint Francis of Assisi and 'Cañas', a Spanish word for 'Reeds'), as it was established in a place surrounded by water springs and reeds, possibly around the Salinas River (Nuevo León), which curses across the municipality. San Francisco de Cañas was part of the Valle de las Salinas (Spanish for 'Salinas Valley'). The Salinas Valley was one of the fourteen subdivisions of the New Kingdom of León. It comprised the present-day municipalities of Abasolo, El Carmen, Mina, Hidalgo and Salinas Victoria, being the last one the administrative seat of the Salinas Valley. San Francisco de Cañas, often referred as Cañas until it was created as a municipality on May 31, 1851, therefore it was separated from the Salinas Valley administrative region, and was renamed as Mina. In honor of Spanish general Francisco Javier Mina.

Nuevo León (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈnweβo leˈon]), officially Free and Sovereign State of Nuevo León (Spanish: Estado Libre y Soberano de Nuevo León), is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 51 municipalities and its capital city is Monterrey.

It is located in Northeastern Mexico. It is bordered by the states of Tamaulipas to the north and east, San Luis Potosí to the south, and Coahuila to the west. To the north, Nuevo León has a 15 kilometer (9 mi) stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border adjacent to the U.S. state of Texas.

The state was named after the New Kingdom of León, an administrative territory of the Viceroyalty of New Spain.

Besides its capital, other important cities are Guadalupe, Santa Catarina, San Nicolás de los Garza, and San Pedro Garza García, all of which are part of the Monterrey Metropolitan area.

Nuevo León was originally founded by Alberto del Canto, although frequent raids by Chichimecas, the natives of the north, prevented the establishment of almost any permanent settlements. Subsequent to the failure of del Canto to populate Luis Carvajal y de la Cueva, at the head of Portuguese and Spanish settlers, requested permission from the Spanish King to attempt to repopulate the area which would be called the New Kingdom of León, it eventually became (along with the provinces of Coahuila, Nuevo Santander and Texas) one of the Eastern Internal Provinces in Northern New Spain.