Aguililla

Aguililla, seat of the municipality of the same name, lies in southwestern Michoacán, about 290 km from Morelia. At 920 metres it sits above the Tierra Caliente plain and looks toward the Sierra Madre del Sur and the Sierra de Dos Aguas, with Cerro de las Conchas the municipality's highest point. The Aguililla and Chapula rivers cross the municipality on their way to the Nexpa. In 2020 the town had 8,505 of the municipality's 14,754 residents.

It began after Independence, in the early 19th century, when families from Zamora and Cotija settled on a hacienda owned by María Josefa del Peral to farm and raise cattle. By 1831 it was a tenencia of Apatzingán; in 1854 the republican guerrilla Pascual Rodríguez Pinzón attacked and burned it, and on 22 June 1877 it became a municipality. Santiago Tapia (1820-1866) was born here, as was the goalkeeper Moisés Muñoz.

The centre is anchored by the 19th-century church of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, now the parish church, and the municipality also holds the El Limón archaeological site. In Holy Week, Wednesday to Friday, the Judas figures and the Maringuías carnival come out, and from 1 October to mid-November the town honours the Virgin of the Tres Cerritos.

It is also the birthplace of Nemesio Oseguera, 'El Mencho'. From late 2020 cartel fighting cut it off, with trenches across the road and battles in April 2021, until the army and National Guard took back control in February 2022. After the cartel boss fell, in February 2026, about 250 people dressed in white marched for peace from the Colegio Diocesano to the parish church.