Tilzapotla

Tilzapotla means "place where black zapote is plentiful": tliltic is black, zapotl is zapote and tlan marks abundance. With 4,932 residents in 2020 and an elevation of about 1,014 metres, it is the second most populous locality in the municipality of Puente de Ixtla, after the seat itself. Its growth came late: the 1900 census counted 634 people, 1960 already 2,595, and 1980 reached 4,729, a figure it has hovered around since.

Little is known of its origins. A reference on Tehuixtla says that village granted land to a colony of "French" settlers, perhaps Basque-descended criollos, to populate Tilzapotla, now an independent village. Marciano Silva, the singer of the Zapatistas, was born here in 1849: he enlisted in 1912, was left disabled in combat and spent the war writing and singing, in the camps, ballads about the Zapatista commanders, though he always lived in Tlaltizapán, where his parents worked.

The terrain is the striking part. The sierras of Tilzapotla and Huautla start to the south, and the profile from Cerro Frío to Tilzapotla drops from 2,280 to 1,000 metres in just 5 km, a gradient the source itself singles out (256 m per km). A bromeliad, Hechtia montis-frigidi, was described from a spot a kilometre from Guerrero and is so far known only from this corner. In the municipality, the Presa Emiliano Zapata reservoir lies at Tilzapotla. A 2020 Wiki Loves México photograph shows a chinelo dancing to the village band during its carnival.