Colotlán

Colotlán is the main town of northern Jalisco, set in a valley at about 1,550 metres and wedged between parts of Zacatecas, which surround it to the south, east and west. The 2020 census counted 15,129 people. The name is translated as "place where scorpions abound", which is why the municipal coat of arms has a scorpion at its centre. It is home to the University of Guadalajara's northern campus (CUNORTE), opened in 2000, which draws students from across the region.

What sets Colotlán apart is piteado, embroidery on leather with thread made from pita fibre, used for belts, saddles, hats, bags and boots. The big letters on the plaza call it the "world capital of piteado", and around 190 workshops in town divide the work: some artisans twist the thread (traditionally with saliva, which is said to make it stronger), others cut and design the leather, and others do the embroidery. A fine piteado belt can take two or three months and cost up to 5,000 pesos, and a saddle runs to around 50,000. The craft boomed in the 1990s with the fashion for banda and mariachi music, and charros from other states still come to Colotlán to buy; the biggest market is now the United States. Local potters also make ollas, jugs, comales and casseroles.

The valley's recorded history begins with resistance. Pedro Almíndez Chirinos arrived in 1530 and found no large settlement; ten years later a leader called Zacatecas rallied the local peoples against the conquest and died in the Mixtón War. In 1589 Captain Miguel Caldera granted land to found the Villa Nueva Tlaxcala, settled with Tlaxcalan families brought in to pacify the Chichimecas, and the town was laid out in three barrios: Tlaxcala, Soyatitlán and Tochopa. After independence it became a villa and the seat of a canton, and it was made a city on 19 February 1833. President Victoriano Huerta was born here.

In the centre are the 19th-century Parroquia de San Luis, with a three-tier neoclassical front, Ionic columns, a statue of the saint in the top niche, an unfinished tower and an oil mural in the sanctuary, and the Templo de San Nicolás, with a Baroque doorway, a three-tier tower and a two-level stone altar canopy inside. The climate is semi-dry, with rain in June and July and around 22 frost days a year. Local food includes pipián with poultry and squash seeds, milk sweets, candied biznaga, sweet potato and squash, pulque and aguamiel.