Zumpango del Río

Zumpango del Río, usually just Zumpango, is the seat of Eduardo Neri municipality, about 13 km northeast of Chilpancingo on federal highway 95, the old Mexico City-Acapulco road. Home to 27,944 people in 2020, it sits a little over 1,000 m up, among low hills of dry tropical forest and savanna at the foot of the Sierra Madre del Sur. Its Nahuatl name points to the tzompantli, the Aztec skull rack, while "del Río" refers to the Tetelzin stream the town grew up beside.

Before the conquest it was a Coixca settlement that the Aztecs took over and made the head of a province covering Tixtla, Mochitlán and Huitziltepec. Spaniards struck silver here in 1531, Hernán Cortés owned some of the mines and the place became Zumpango de las Minas, though most workings were abandoned by 1582. Guava orchards are common today, and some mezcal is made.

An earthquake in the 1830s brought down the colonial church; all that is left is a wall and part of a window among houses on the north side of the alameda. Its replacement, the Herrerian-style parish church of Santiago Apóstol, was finished in 1847 and opened during the Candelaria fiesta. Locals say it was built with earth and a mortar of lime and egg white. It houses the Señor de las Misericordias, a Christ figure that draws pilgrims every 25 July.

That opening gave the town its signature bread. Encalados are hard ring loaves of flour, sugar and cinnamon under a crunchy white glaze dotted with four spots of red sugar, first baked as an offering for the 1847 ceremony. The municipal market sells them all year, and bakers step up output in early February. The Candelaria fair, starting on 2 February, is the big event of the year; the 2025 edition ran from 1 to 16 February with dances, charreadas and free concerts in the Alameda Coronel José María Bernal. The Jacobo Harootian cultural centre fills the old town hall, known as the Casa de Altos, and honours a benefactor who arrived around 1889.