Tlamaco

The original name, Tlemaco, joins tletl (fire) and maitl (hand): "arm of fire", meaning a censer, and so "place of the censer". The Boturini and Aubin codices say the Mexica, on their journey to Tenochtitlan, came here from Atitalaquia and stayed five years; the Boturini dates the founding to 1173 (7-Rabbit) and the Aubin to 1174 (8-Reed), and both agree they moved on to Atotonilco. Later Tlamaco paid tribute to Tenochtitlan after Moctezuma Ilhuicamina subdued the Teotlalpan region, and after the Conquest it became an encomienda; Cortés granted the Atitalaquia one as early as 1530.

The Franciscans ran the evangelisation and, in the 1570s, led the villagers in building the chapel of San Jerónimo, the local patron saint, from the area's pink quarry stone. It has a barrel vault, plateresque elements on the façade and carvings in the tequitqui style, and beside it an open chapel of arcades.

Tlamaco lies at 2,124 metres, on plain and low hills of the Neovolcanic Axis, with a temperate semi-dry climate, about 5.5 km southwest of Atitalaquia. Its population grew from 175 people in 1900 to 3,885 in 2020, which makes it a large village for this part of the Mezquital Valley, already within the orbit of the Tula metropolitan zone.