San Nicolás Galeana

Galeana, as people in the region call it, began as the hacienda of San Nicolás, and it still carries the name of its patron saint, Nicholas of Bari, alongside that of Hermenegildo Galeana, a hero of the War of Independence. It stands at about 919 metres, 2.6 km northwest of Zacatepec, in the sugarcane belt of southern Morelos. When the municipality of Zacatepec was created on 25 December 1938 by decree of Governor Elpidio Perdomo, Galeana was one of the three assistantships that made it up, together with Tetelpa and Zacatepec itself, which became the seat.

The recent growth is the striking part. The census counted 628 people in 1940, 1,536 in 1960, more than 5,800 in 1980 and 11,322 in 2020. That is large for a village; its parish, San Nicolás de Bari, belongs to the Diocese of Cuernavaca.

It is not a destination for monuments or nature, and it is fair to say so: it suits people who want to see what a former sugar hacienda looks like today as a working neighbourhood. The nearest things to build a trip around are in Zacatepec, where President Lázaro Cárdenas opened the sugar mill on 5 February 1938 inside the old hacienda buildings, and in Tlaltizapán, home of Zapata's wartime headquarters, about 9 km away in a straight line.