Ixtlahuacán de los Membrillos

Ixtlahuacán de los Membrillos is the seat of the municipality of the same name, on the Guadalajara–Chapala highway about ten minutes north of Chapala and twenty minutes south of Guadalajara airport, at around 1,600 metres above sea level. At the 2020 census it had 9,561 people, and the municipality is part of the Guadalajara metropolitan area. The name comes from Nahuatl and is usually translated as "place of plains"; "de los Membrillos" refers to the many quince orchards that once grew here, and quince is still the local product, made into a punch, a thick fruit paste (ate) and cajeta.

The story of its founding mixes records and legend. Between 1513 and 1534 a group from Tlajomulco led by Francisco Tepotzin lived at El Varal, a spot at the foot of El Picacho hill. Around 1533, tradition says, a revelation warned them that the site would sink and that they should look, at night and facing east, for a very bright light; it was the reflection of the morning star, Venus, in the pools formed by the El Ojo de Agua spring, and that is where they settled. Beside the spring stands a sabino (Montezuma cypress) more than four centuries old. In 1537 the Tecuexe chief Chapalac arrived with eighty families, and together the two groups founded the town without any Spanish involvement; Chapalac himself later moved on south to what is now Chapala.

The patron saint is the Apostle James (Santiago). At the town entrance, beside the colourful name letters, a tall column carries his figure on horseback, and the parish church of Santiago Apóstol stands in the centre. The patron saint's fiesta lasts about ten days around 25 July, with a novena, church bells, rockets and music at dawn, and coincides with the quince harvest. The municipality keeps several old hacienda buildings and the Atequiza theatre, built in 1886, and the Santiago river runs through it.