Tolcayuca

There are two readings of the name. The municipal encyclopedia translates it as "place where the head is bowed", from the Nahuatl tolocayotl; others link it to Tolcuauhyocan, "place of thick reeds", as it appears in the 17th-century Techialoyan codices, where the town is listed as San Xuan Tolquauhyocan, and in the Codex Xólotl, with a glyph of reed and tree. According to the same encyclopedia, around the year 800 Toltecs and Chichimecs lived here under Nopaltzin, son of Xólotl, within the kingdom of Acolhuacan, later conquered by the Mexica ruler Itzcóatl. Tolcayuca became a municipality in 1873. The town, at 2,378 metres in the Tizayuca valley, had 8,966 residents in 2020, only about a fifth of the municipality.

Its main building is the church of San Juan Bautista, built by the Franciscans in the mid-16th century: a single nave with a barrel vault divided into four bays by three transverse arches on plain pilasters. The plain chapel of San Pedro stands on Plaza Independencia, and the town also has the chapel of the Purísima Concepción, from 1860, the chapel of San Salvador and a monument to Benito Juárez. A primary school was already running in 1867, and since 2008 the town has been the seat of the Universidad Politécnica Metropolitana de Hidalgo.

The patron feast is San Juan Bautista on 24 June, and on 16 September, after the Grito, there is a dance, charrería, cockfights and fireworks. In Holy Week the town stages the Judea, a play with Judas as the main character, performed by men of all ages in handmade masks and colourful costumes. Local crafts revolve around the maguey and the horse: maguey ropes, saddles, belts and girths. To eat there are carnitas, chicharrón, chicken and mutton barbacoa, candied squash and fermented maguey drinks.