Tultitlán de Mariano Escobedo

Tultitlán means "among the reeds" in Nahuatl, a reminder that this corner of the northern Valley of Mexico was all lagoons, streams and marsh before the city swallowed it. The seat, also known as San Antonio Tultitlán, is now a town of 30,929 people (2020) inside a municipality of more than half a million, with neighbourhoods as big as Buenavista and San Pablo de las Salinas. The "de Mariano Escobedo" was added on 2 October 1902, when the state congress chose to honour the general, who had died that May.

Tepanec settlers founded the town in 1356, its first ruler, Cuauhtzinteuctli, took power in 1408, and the Aztecs conquered it in 1438. The municipality holds far older traces too: in 1991 INAH archaeologists dug up four mammoths at San Pablo de las Salinas, one of them apparently butchered by hunters some 13,000 to 15,000 years ago.

Two stone churches stand side by side in the centre. San Lorenzo and its cloister went up between 1570 and 1586 under Friar Bernardino de la Fuente, built with stone taken from the old pre-Hispanic temple; the atrium wall is carved with the glyphs of the villages and barrios whose people built it. San Antonio de Padua, 50 m long with walls two metres thick, was begun in the 18th century, sat half-built for more than 70 years and was finished in 1826; its Neoclassical high altar copies the one at Chalma. The chapel of the Holy Cross, probably 17th century, is now part of the new town hall, and an ahuehuete cypress at least 250 years old grows in the square.

The image of Saint Anthony arrived around 1645 and became the patron in 1907. His day, 13 June, anchors the municipality's biggest fair, which runs for most of the month with fireworks every night, crafts, a farm-animal market and stalls selling quesadillas, pambazos, tlacoyos and mutton barbacoa. At weekends the square hosts pre-Hispanic dances and singing contests, and each barrio keeps its own feast, such as La Concepción on 8 December.