Axutla

During the War of Independence, insurgents led by Juan Terán defeated royalist troops here. Today Axutla is a small, hot village: 612 people in 2020, at just 880 metres, on a bend of the narrow Acatlán valley where the Mixteco River curves south of the houses. Its name reads as "hot water" (atl, water, plus a Nahuatl root tied to heat), and it is no exaggeration: the whole municipality lies inside the 24 °C annual isotherm. It is 81 km in a straight line from Atlixco and 97 km from the state capital, closer to Cuautla in Morelos than to Puebla.

It was founded by Mixtecs and Popolocas in pre-Hispanic times, then subject to the Mexica-led Triple Alliance. Under Spanish rule it belonged to the alcaldía mayor of Acatlán; after independence it was part of Piaxtla until the Puebla congress made it a free municipality on 19 September 1922. The land is nearly all mountain: to the north the Sierra de Acatlán, with the hills of El Ídolo, El Infiernillo and Loma Grande, and to the south another range with Los Paredones, El Potrero and El Cazahuate. The Mixteco River, which rises in Oaxaca's Mixteca Baja and flows down to join the Atoyac, forms the boundary with Piaxtla. The municipality's second town, Huehuepiaxtla, has its own auxiliary council.

Almost four-fifths of the land is low deciduous forest, scrubby woodland that turns green and flowers with the summer rains; among its trees are cuajilote, pochote, copal and cacalosúchil. About 800 mm of rain falls a year. In the centre stands the 16th-century parish church, dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus under the protection of Saint Michael the Archangel and open every day; it belongs to the diocese of Huajuapan de León. Festive food is mole poblano, pipián and tamales, and local sweets are mango preserves and palanqueta. The municipality has its own wind band.