Chalchihuitán

Chalchihuitán sits in the Chiapas Highlands at about 1,461 metres and is the seat of a municipality of 21,915 people and 57 localities. The seat itself is small: 1,976 people in 2020, nearly all indigenous (99 percent), and the municipality's biggest locality is actually Chiquinshulum, with 2,102. The name is Nahuatl and points to a place rich in chalchihuite, the green stone known in Mexico as jade. The area was Tsotsil before the conquest; Dominican friars arrived in 1549 and called it San Pablo, a name kept until 13 February 1934, when Governor Victórico Grajales renamed it Chalchihuitán. Residents joined the indigenous uprisings of 1712 and 1869, and the main fiesta is that of San Pablo.\n\nThe municipality is steep sierra (about 80 percent rugged), with pine-oak forest and the San Cayetano, San Pablo and Blanco rivers. It borders Chenalhó, Pantelhó, Simojovel, El Bosque and Larráinzar. Retail, food and lodging services are its main economic activity.\n\nIt needs saying plainly that this is not a tourist stop. From 2017 a boundary dispute with Chenalhó, rooted in a 1973 land assignment, displaced between 4,000 and 6,000 people depending on the count, and human rights groups reported deaths in the mountain camps. An agrarian court ruled for Chenalhó in December 2017, and by late 2018 hundreds of families were still displaced. Anyone going should check the current situation first.