Tepalcatepec

Tepalcatepec, known to everyone as Tepeque, is the seat of the municipality of the same name, at the far western end of Michoacán's Tierra Caliente, right against the Jalisco line. It sits at about 370 metres in the valley of the Tepalcatepec River, 267 km from Morelia, and had 17,293 people in 2020. The name is Nahuatl for "hill of the potsherds".

The settlement is pre-Hispanic and paid tribute in cotton and salt to the Purépecha. In 1528 it was granted in encomienda to Alonso de Ávalos, Franciscans from Tancítaro converted its people, and by 1580 forty Spaniards lived here off cacao orchards and cattle ranches. It became a tenencia of Apatzingán in 1831 and a municipality of its own in June 1877. During the Cristero War, in 1927 and 1928, it was besieged three times by federal troops. In 2013 it was the birthplace of the self-defence movement led by the doctor José Manuel Mireles.

The yearly average is close to 29 °C, 50.3 °C has been recorded in May, and the air stays very dry most of the year. The land around is dry tropical scrub with mesquite, huizache, cactus and parota trees, and the rocky hillsides are home to the Michoacán spiny-tailed iguana, found only in this area.

The centre keeps the parish church of San Francisco, the town hall, the arcades around the plaza, laid out under the building ordinances of Philip II, and Avenida Melchor Ocampo. The food is pure Tierra Caliente: cecina, morisqueta, fire-roasted goat, lard tamales, atoles and capirotada. Local workshops make wooden furniture and leather goods, and the music is harp and brass band.