Cuauhtémoc

Cuauhtémoc is the seat of the municipality of the same name in northeastern Colima, about 940 metres up and 15 km from the state capital. It had 9,746 people in 2020 and belongs to the Colima metropolitan area. The climate is warm and fairly humid, averaging 23.7 °C, with rain from May to October.

The town grew up beside the Camino Real, the colonial road from Mexico City down to Colima and the port of Manzanillo. Ranches along it fed and housed passing muleteers, and by about 1850 the cluster was called the Ranchos de San Jerónimo. Colima's Congress made it a pueblo in 1879 under the name Guatimotzín, the 19th-century spelling of the last Aztec ruler's name, and on February 1, 1919 it became the seat of a new municipality, now spelled Cuauhtémoc. Francisco I. Madero and later Álvaro Obregón stayed here during the Revolution, and the Cristero war in Colima began in the municipality on February 28, 1927, at the battle of the Mascadas de Caña ranch. In 2013 Cuauhtémoc became the first municipality in the state to hold a same-sex wedding.

The big event is the October fiesta for San Jerónimo and the archangels, centred on San Rafael: two weeks of charro and bullfighting festivities, the toro de once and street dances, second in the state only to Villa de Álvarez. It opens with the Entrada de la Música, born here over 170 years ago, when townspeople met the brass bands from Tuxpan with decorated carts; today it is a cavalcade of up to 5,000 riders.