San Francisco

The village of San Francisco takes its name from its patron saint, Francis of Assisi. It is a locality in the municipality of Atlatlahucan, at about 1,508 m above sea level, with INEGI code 170020025, and is not to be mixed up with any other San Francisco in the country or the state. Census counts trace its growth: 172 people in 1980, 205 in 1990, 326 in 2000, 1,004 in 2010 and 1,537 in 2020.

Its position explains the growth. Open maps place it at a crossroads: federal highway 115, labelled Santa Barbara-Izucar de Matamoros, passes through, along with state road Morelos 10, which splits into a branch to Cuautla and another to Yecapixtla. The maps also show the Antigua Carretera Cuautla-Mexico, the Carretera Vieja Mexico-Cuautla and a street called Avenida Ferrocarril, traces of the time when travel between the capital and Cuautla ran this way. Local streets include Calle San Francisco, Popocatepetl and Emiliano Zapata.

The biggest sight nearby is the former convent of San Mateo Apostol in the municipal seat, Atlatlahucan, a few kilometres away. Augustinians, who reached the area in 1533, founded it; the foundation date Wikipedia gives is 1570. It belongs to the Route of the Convents of Popocatepetl, which UNESCO inscribed in 1994 as the Earliest 16th-Century Monasteries on the Slopes of Popocatepetl. Atlatlahucan also holds the Feria del Señor de Tepalcingo on the fourth Friday of Lent, and locals say the chinelo dance began there, though Wikipedia notes there is no documentary proof.

San Francisco itself is a place of passage and housing; open sources document no monument or festival of its own.