San Salvador

San Salvador is the seat of a Mezquital Valley municipality created on 15 February 1826 and named for the Saviour, patron of its church. The town stands at 1,940 metres above sea level on flat ground in the Neovolcanic Axis, under a semi-dry temperate climate, and its runoff drains to the Actopan River, part of the Moctezuma basin. The 2020 census found 1,107 people (542 men, 565 women), 3.01% of the municipality.

The census record is one of ups and downs. There were 392 residents in 1900 and only 476 in 1950; by 1960 the figure had more than doubled to 1,090. It kept climbing to 1,502 in 2000, fell to 978 in 2005, and settled at 1,107 fifteen years later. Around the town the municipality planted 3,250 hectares of maize in 2015, with beans, alfalfa and squash on smaller plots, and raises sheep, pigs, cattle and poultry.

Of the Divino Salvador parish church, Wikimedia Commons holds a 2014 photograph filed among Mexico's registered monuments. INEGI's municipal compendium also names, among the municipality's monuments, the church of Santa Bárbara, finished in 1830 to replace a temple the Augustinians built in the late 16th century, and the church of Milpa de la Virgen on the plaza of Lagunilla de Boxaxni. Local tradition at the table means barbacoa, moronga in broth or green chile, huitlacoche quesadillas and drinks made from aguamiel.