Unión Hidalgo

Unión Hidalgo was born in 1882, when several ranches founded by families from Juchitán de Zaragoza were brought together. They had split apart over internal quarrels; the district's political chief, Francisco León Hernández, tried to unite them, and when they refused he ordered them burned and the people moved. The name follows: "Unión" for the merger and "Hidalgo" for Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla. The founding is celebrated 26 to 30 September, with the 29th the main day. It is also called Ranchugubiña, and its motto is "Land of Pretty Girls".

It sits about 20 m above sea level in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, north of the Laguna Superior, and had 13,949 residents in 2020. Cattle and commerce are the mainstays; the main market is the 7 de Noviembre beside the railway station, and on Thursdays a tianguis brings in outside traders. Growers raise mango, watermelon, orange, corn, beans and sorghum, and people fish in the Espíritu Santo river and at Playa Unión. This is a home of tapu, a cloth-ball game particular to the region, and the calendar of velas runs from April to December, including San Pedro Apóstol, the patron saint, on 29 June.

On 7 September 2017 the magnitude 8.2 earthquake killed seven people here, injured 55 and left more than 300 families homeless, and damaged the churches of San Pedro Apóstol and María Santísima. A memorial to the victims stands in town. The Línea K railway has reached the town since 1902; the old station was demolished after the quake and a new one is planned for the Interoceanic Train. In 2022, after five years of litigation, the community also won the cancellation of the Gunna Sicarú wind project.