Tlaxcoapan

The most accepted meaning of Tlaxcoapan is "on the river of the ball game", which is how its glyph shows it. According to the INAFED municipal encyclopedia, the place paid tribute to Tenochtitlan and was held for half a century by a relative of Moctezuma. When the Spanish arrived it was part of the Teotlalpan; in the 18th century it was an indigenous republic under the alcaldía mayor of Mixquiahuala, and in 1869 it became a municipality. With 14,689 residents in 2020, it is the largest of the cluster of neighbouring towns between Tula and Mixquiahuala, on a plain at 2,062 metres irrigated by the Salado River.

The Franciscans based in Tula built only a small hermitage here; the present church of San Pedro Apóstol was put up by the secular clergy in the 17th century. It has a single masonry nave with a barrel vault and crenellated walls, faces west, and has a two-tier baroque portal with columns on tall pedestals, a trapezoidal window and a pediment holding a niche with the Virgin of Guadalupe; the square, single-stage tower rises on the left. In front, a tree-lined atrium steps down towards the central square.

On the last Saturday of April the Fiesta de Espigas gives thanks for the harvest: the Blessed Sacrament is carried in procession over streets laid with painted sawdust carpets, past decorated houses. On 15 May mass is said in the cornfields for San Isidro Labrador, and 29 June is the patron feast of San Pedro, with bullfighting events, cockfights and cultural activities. Before Ash Wednesday there is a carnival with floats, costumed groups and confetti-filled eggshells, and in Holy Week the Passion is re-enacted, with Stations of the Cross ending at the sports ground. Since 2014 the town has had the Orquesta Sinfónica Infantil y Juvenil de Tlaxcoapan, which began with 158 children from the region and has toured the Yucatán Peninsula.