La Cruz

This La Cruz is not the one in Nayarit or Jalisco: it lies in the municipality of Francisco I. Madero, at 2,039 metres and about 3 km south-west of Tepatepec, the seat. It is a small locality, with 738 residents and 197 occupied dwellings in the 2020 census, on plain and low hills of the Mezquital Valley.

The climate is semi-dry temperate. The local water belongs to the Moctezuma basin, on the edge of the Actopan sub-basins. Its recent past can be read in the census: 309 people in 1980, 417 in 1990, 473 in 1995, 520 in 2000 and 531 in 2005. In 2010 there was a slight dip to 501, then a jump to the 738 of 2020, an increase of nearly half in ten years.

Francisco I. Madero became a municipality in May 1927; its main product by volume is green alfalfa, with over 244,000 tonnes in 2015, and it also grows maize. La Cruz has a high marginalisation rating and low social lag, which describes a farming village that relies on the seat for services and shopping. It is somewhere to pass through respectfully or to visit someone, more than a destination for a day out.