Chinantla

In Chinantla the municipal boundary is literally a street: the town is joined to Piaxtla, and a single road separates the two. It lies in the Mixteca Poblana, in the broad valley that opens in the middle of the Sierra de Acatlán at about 1,200 m, and in 2020 had 1,626 residents, most of them growing maize, beans and squash.

The climate is warm and fairly humid, with summer rains broken by the so-called mid-summer drought, and 200 to 240 clear days a year. The hills to the west and northeast, rising to about 1,520 m, are covered in low deciduous forest, and their streams drain to the Mixteco or the Atoyac.

According to the federal encyclopedia of municipalities, it was founded by Nahua, Popoloca and Mixtec groups; in colonial times the native population was gathered here, and at the end of the 16th century it was granted the rank of pueblo. In the 19th century it belonged to the Acatlán district, and by 1895 it was a free municipality. Among its notable people is Jesús Zafra, a lawyer and general who fought in the French Intervention of 1862.

The 16th-century parish church is the main building in town. The big fiesta is on 25 January for Padre Jesús, with processions, fireworks and the Tecuanis, Doce Pares de Francia and Vaqueros dances. Through the year there are also feasts for San José (21 March), the Virgen de la Luz (5 May) and San Isidro Labrador (15 May). The town has its own brass band, and local food includes mole, pipián, tamales, palanquetas (nut brittle) and aguardiente.