Las Arboledas

Until 2010 the census listed this place as Campo del Cimarrón (Colonia Las Arboledas), a name that points to its origin: farm fields that gradually filled with houses. The numbers show it clearly. INEGI counted 2 people in 1990, 525 in 2000, about 900 in 2005, 1,409 in 2010 and 1,850 in 2020, so almost everything standing today was built in the last twenty years.

It belongs to the municipality of Ayala, about 2.3 km east of the seat, Ciudad Ayala, as the crow flies, and sits near 1,300 m above sea level. Its nearest neighbours are other new settlements: Ampliación Reforma less than 500 m away, Ampliación Gabriel Tepepa and Reforma about a kilometre off, and La Joya to the north. Together they make a belt of colonias between Ayala and Cuautla, which is roughly 5 km away in a straight line. The 2020 figures describe somewhere still settling in: 42% of homes with piped water, 96% with electricity and nearly 88% with a mobile phone.

The setting is flat farmland with low hills to the south, El Izote (1,344 m) about 3.5 km off and La Tortuga (1,303 m) about 5 km. The climate is warm and semi-arid, averaging 21.5 °C a year, with April the hottest month (24.7 °C on average) and summer rains adding up to about 1,130 mm. There is no lodging in the village itself; the nearest hotels and motels are about 4 km to the northeast, toward Cuautla.