San Gabriel Mixtepec

San Gabriel Mixtepec is the seat of a municipality of about 482 km² of hilly land in the Sierra Madre del Sur foothills, in the Juquila district of Oaxaca's Costa region. Mixtepec means "hill of clouds". The municipality lies at about 1,380 m, with a warm, sub-humid climate, an average temperature of 24 °C and about 1,300 mm of rain a year. The 2020 census counted 3,673 residents in the town (3,518 in 2010).

Tradition holds that the town was founded in the year 600 at a place called Quiejum, "ear-of-grain stone". Around 1800 residents moved to the present site. In 1826 it belonged to the Juquila partido; on 28 December 1838 it received the deed to its lands from judge Agustín Monterrubio; in 1844 it was a town of the Teotepec parish, and by 1891 a municipal agency of the Juquila district.

Most people live from farming: maize, coffee, beans, bananas, cacao, oranges, lemons, pineapple and chili. Logging, livestock and trade matter less. Mango, avocado, nanche and mamey grow here, and the hills hold deer, iguana, wild boar, fox, chachalaca and several snakes, coral snakes among them. Hills such as La Olla (1,364 m, about 4 km away) and El Pajarito (896 m) surround the town, with villages like Cañada de los Matus (about 5.6 km north) and Las Palmas (about 6 km south-west) nearby.