Santa Catarina Tayata

Santa Catarina Tayata is the seat of a very small municipality in the southern Mixteca of Oaxaca, in the Tlaxiaco district: 38.7 km² with eight localities and 679 people in 2010. The village stands at about 2,100 m and was the municipality's largest locality in 2020, with 313 residents. Its population has swung widely: 747 in 1900, 903 in 1921, 495 in 1940, only 89 in 1990 and 338 five years later, then 277 in 2010 and 313 in 2020.

The founding date usually cited is 1521, and the patron saint is Catherine of Alexandria. The town once belonged to the municipality of Achiutla, together with San Juan Achiutla, Nudzeño and Santo Domingo Huendio. In 1922 the municipality was split into three sections, and in 1937 the second broke away as a police agency named Cuauhtémoc, which left some political distance from the seat. Land use is mostly farming and livestock.

Small neighbourhoods and settlements surround it: Barrio Dolores (Primera Sección), Yosomaño, the Segunda Sección, Barrio San Miguel, Santa Cruz Tayata (about 1.5 km away, a separate municipality) and Cuauhtémoc, about 4 km east. San Juan Achiutla is about 5 km south. In April 2025 the communities of Tayata and Achiutla held a joint tequio to maintain the track that marks the boundary between their municipalities. The peaks around are Yucuquise (2,613 m), Yucuxito (2,566 m) and La Virgen (2,505 m). The rainy season runs from April to October; frosts come from December to February.