Aután

Aután is a farming village in the north of the municipality of San Blas, out on the low, flat coastal plain that runs toward Santiago Ixcuintla. It sits barely ten meters above sea level, about 17 kilometers north of the port of San Blas in a straight line and roughly 26 to 29 kilometers away by road. Its closest neighbors are small rural settlements such as El Carleño and El Toro Guaco, and the larger village of Guadalupe Victoria, known locally as La Virocha, lies about two kilometers to the northeast.

The name comes from Náhuatl; Spanish Wikipedia renders it as "place where aqueducts abound", built from words for water and canal. The census traces a village that grew steadily through the twentieth century, from fewer than 500 people in 1930 to a peak of about 2,670 in 1980, and has slowly shrunk since: the 2020 count found 1,647 residents in 557 occupied homes. The climate is hot and humid, with an average temperature of about 25 °C and around 1,200 mm of rain a year.

Aután has no hotels or tourist services of its own. It does have several schools, from kindergarten up to an upper-secondary institute, and an IMSS-Bienestar clinic, and it lies on the paved state road that links Guadalupe Victoria with federal Highway 15. Most of the area's restaurants, taquerías and roast-chicken stands are in Guadalupe Victoria, and the nearest lodgings are a few kilometers away. For travelers it is a quiet stop on the back roads between San Blas and the north of Nayarit; the island town of Mexcaltitán is about 56 kilometers away by road.