Poncitlán

Poncitlán is the seat of the municipality of the same name, in Jalisco's Ciénega region, at 1,552 metres and right beside the Santiago River, which forms the municipality's northern boundary. It is part of the Ocotlán metropolitan area, and had 14,636 people at the 2020 census. To the south the municipality reaches Lake Chapala, where Mezcala and its island, San Pedro Itzicán and other lakeside villages lie.

The name has been explained as "place of cilacayotes" (a kind of squash), "beside the chilli fields on the shore" or "place of the god Ponze". The region belonged to Coca peoples within the lordship of Coinan, and in the early 16th century it was ruled by a chief named Ponze, whom the Spanish baptised Pedro Ponce. In 1510 the chief Chapalac left after a quarrel with him and went on to found what is now Chapala. Alonso de Ávalos conquered these lands in 1521 and Nuño de Guzmán arrived in 1530. Poncitlán already had a town council by 1825; in 1886 it lost municipal status and was annexed to Ocotlán, but it regained it on 21 February 1888.

The first church, the convent of San Pedro y San Pablo, was built in 1543 and destroyed by an earthquake on 2 October 1847. The present parish of Nuestra Señora del Rosario was begun in 1868 on land donated by a resident; its dome was completed in 1920, with the four evangelists painted at its base. The image of the Virgin of the Rosary is held to be a gift from Charles V in 1548, and her fiesta, on the third Sunday of November, is the biggest of the year, with processions, dances, pilgrimages with flowers and banners, serenades and fireworks towers. Nearby is a 16th-century chapel that once served as a hospital for Indigenous people and holds a wooden Christ.

The local food star is picón, a sweet bread that the town's bakeries have made for generations, celebrated with its own Expo Picón in February. Poncitlán also makes natillas, long tostadas topped with potato, panela cheese and meat, lake charales, pozole and birria roasted with maguey leaves. Local crafts are huaraches, embroidery and weaving.