Tepatitlán de Morelos

Tepatitlán de Morelos, "Tepa" to locals, is the seat of the municipality of the same name and the largest city in the Altos Sur region of Jalisco, at about 1,785 metres above sea level and some 70 km east of Guadalajara. At the 2020 census it had 98,842 people; in 1950 it had barely over 15,000. It is a farming powerhouse, considered Mexico's largest egg producer and the state's largest pork producer, and it also turns out milk and tequila. The Nahuatl name translates as "place of hard stone".

Before the Conquest the area belonged to the Tecuexe people. Captain Pedro Almíndez Chirinos arrived in 1530, sent by Nuño de Guzmán, and Franciscan friars built the first church, dedicated to Saint Francis of Assisi, which gave the colonial name San Francisco de Tecpatitlán. It became a villa in 1824 and in 1883 was made a city with Morelos added to its name. During the Cristero War (1927–1929) the bloodiest battle of the whole conflict was fought inside the town: the Cristeros fired from the tower of the San Antonio church and the federal troops from the towers of the parish church.

The parish church of San Francisco de Asís, built between 1742 and 1775, dominates the skyline with two 63-metre towers mixing Baroque and neoclassical styles; inside is a white Carrara marble altar by the Italian sculptor Augusto C. Volpi, flanked by statues of the four Evangelists. In front of it, the Plaza de Armas has an ironwork bandstand made in France. The pink-stone, neoclassical Sanctuary of the Señor de la Misericordia holds the most revered image in the region: tradition says that in 1835 a farmer, Pedro Medina, saw a light on Cerro Gordo and found a crucifix-like figure in an oak tree. An annexe displays more than 400 votive paintings, the oldest from 1840.

The big event is the April fair, known as Tepabril, in honour of the Señor de la Misericordia, with parades of floats, charreadas, a livestock show, concerts and a procession of the image through the streets. To the northwest, Cerro de la Campana is used for mountain biking, and the Río Verde canyon beside it for climbing and camping.