San Pedro Yólox

Yólox comes from Nahuatl yollotl, heart, and San Pedro is the patron apostle. The village stands at 1,877 metres in the Sierra Norte and is the seat of a municipality of about 166 km2 with seven localities: besides the village itself (759 people in 2020) there are San Francisco la Reforma, San Martín Buenavista, Rosario Temextitlán, Nuevo Rosario Temextitlán, El Carrizal and Chirimoya Yólox. The municipality had 1,697 residents in 2020.

The village had 1,059 people in 1921, dropped to about 520 in 1980, climbed to 1,151 in 2005 and settled at 763 in 2010 and 759 in 2020. Nearly everyone is indigenous (96.7%) and 83.7% speak an indigenous language; almost 6% do not speak Spanish, so a little Zapotec helps, or at least patience. There are about 218 homes, with electricity and piped water in practically all of them; around 59% have a landline, 38% a mobile phone and 27% internet.

The climate is cool, with rain all year: a mean of 15.7 °C, about 2,370 mm of rain and more than 300 wet days; September is the wettest month, January the coldest (average 12.9 °C) and a low of just 0.2 °C has been recorded. The mountains rise quickly: Cerro Viento (2,549 m) is about 2.6 km north, around 35 minutes on foot, and farther off are Pelón (3,016 m), Zacate (3,024 m) and Machín (2,949 m).

Rosario Temextitlán is only 600 m to the west, Soledad Tectitlán about 2.4 km north and Santiago Comaltepec about 2.7 km east. The town government works from the Palacio Municipal, phone 951 52 3 70 44.