Las Colonias de Hidalgo

Las Colonias de Hidalgo was founded on 24 March 1942 and its name honours Miguel Hidalgo, father of Mexican independence. In 2020 it had 3,112 people, one of the larger places in the municipality of Huauchinango; it lies at about 1,280 m and some 8 km from the town. The panorama photo, its author says, was taken from the wall of the village's dam.

Huauchinango, about 251 km², drops from 2,700 to 600 m and is divided into 26 auxiliary councils. It gets 1,400 to 2,100 mm of rain a year, with a temperate or semi-warm, humid climate all year round. It is water country: the Necaxa, Acatlán, Totolapa, Zempoala and other rivers cross it, the Tenango reservoir is one of its permanent bodies of water, and the area's dams are part of the old Necaxa hydroelectric system. About four in ten hectares of the municipality are forest.

Nahuatl is the most spoken indigenous language, with about 24,600 speakers in the municipality. In Huauchinango people embroider blouses, loom-weave sashes, wrap skirts and quexquémetl capes, make jonote-bark baskets and amate paper, and dance the xochipitlamas to the violin. Sierra cooking includes chicken with chiltepín chilli, smoked or with mushrooms, mole with San Juan ant salsa, and sweets of pine-nut jamoncillo and chilacayote squash with brown sugar.