San Sebastián Sedas

San Sebastián Sedas sits on the edge between the Central Valleys and the Sierra de Flores Magón, at roughly 1,900 to 1,950 m, among eroded yellow slopes and gullies. It belongs to the municipality of San Francisco Telixtlahuaca and is the second-largest of its 18 localities: 404 people in 2005, 496 in 2010 and 455 in 2020, in about 128 occupied homes.

The village grew around a station of the Ferrocarril Mexicano del Sur, opened in 1892; Sedas was the fifth stop out of Oaxaca city. In 1860, during the Reform War, a battle was fought here and won by liberal troops under Félix Díaz Mori, and in 1912 a local club asked the Madero government for a post office. When trains stopped running the village was left with few jobs and poor connections. Only stretches of track remain, covered by earth, and one of the best-known photos of the place shows that line running out to the gullies.

Small hamlets lie around it: Cañada las Sedas 2 km east, El Mogote del Sol, Santa Cruz el Salto, San Isidro Ojo de Agua and, farther north, Santiago Tenango. Cerro Mesón (2,142 m) is about 2 km to the northeast and Cerro La Cumbre (2,327 m) about 5 km east. The climate is semi-dry, averaging about 19 °C with roughly 770 mm of rain a year. There is no river in the village; the Parián stream runs a few kilometres away. Almost everyone is Catholic and Spanish-speaking.