Mezquitic

Mezquitic is the seat of Jalisco's largest municipality, in the Región Norte, at about 1,350 metres above sea level. Its name, from Nahuatl, is usually read as "inside the mesquite". At the 2020 census the town had 2,639 inhabitants, most of them Wixárika (Huichol), and the municipality includes self-governing communities such as San Andrés Cohamiata and Santa Catarina Cuexcomatitlán.

The founding date is unknown, but the town already existed when the San Juan Bautista convent was set up in 1616. The area belonged to the tlatoanazgo of Colotlán, and about a hundred Tlaxcalan families were settled here under an agreement with the Chichimeca chief Caldera. In 1720 Fray Antonio Margil de Jesús travelled the region, and work on the parish church began in 1774.

The centre has the San Juan Bautista parish church, the bandstand built between 1875 and 1891 and the municipal palace, which holds a 1988 mural by Luis Felipe de la Torre Roma. The municipality has a telescope, a Casa de la Cultura, the Santo Niño de Plateros hermitage and sites such as Laguna del Maguey, the Río Bolaños, Mesa del Venado and the Sierra Cohamiata. Wixárika crafts include embroidery, beadwork, yarn bags and wooden animals coated in candelilla wax.

The main fiestas are San Juan Bautista (16 to 24 June), the Virgin of Guadalupe (4 to 12 December) and the annual fair from 25 to 31 December, with cultural and sports events and rodeos.