San Miguel Yotao

The name Yotao comes from Sierra Zapotec and means river of ears of grain. The village stands at about 1,430 metres in the Sierra Norte, in the Ixtlán district, and local accounts say it was founded around 1600 by people from San Pedro Nexicho. In 1844 it appears as a settlement of the Tanetze parish in the Villa Alta district; in 1858 it fell under the Villa Juárez district, and by 1891 it had its own ayuntamiento in the Ixtlán district.

Today 452 people live here (545 in 2010, 565 in 2005), almost all indigenous: 99% identify as such, nearly 89% speak an indigenous language, and about 7% do not speak Spanish. There are some 138 homes, nearly all with electricity and piped water, but barely one household in a hundred had a car or internet, and mobile signal reaches about half the homes.

This is a country of mist and rain: the climate is temperate highland, with a mean annual temperature of 18.6 °C and more than 2,000 mm of rain falling on about 300 days a year; September is the wettest month and May the warmest. A few kilometres to the west rise Cerro Pelado (2,899 m) and Cerro Tazuga (2,364 m), and Tanetze de Zaragoza lies about 4 km south.

Other communities are very close, such as La Yee and Santa María Laguiche, under 500 m away, and Santo Domingo Cacalotepec, about 3 km. The photo on this page, taken in 2008, shows the sierra around the village.