Piaxtla

Piaxtla is the seat of the municipality of the same name in Puebla's Mixteca, at about 1,100 m. The name comes from the Nahuatl piaztic, long thing, and tlalli, land: "long land". The village had 1,338 people in 2020. Its main road is the Pan-American highway, which crosses the municipality north to south through the town, along with the state road that links it with Ahuehuetitla.

It was a Popoloca, Nahua and Mixtec settlement paying tribute to the Aztecs. In colonial times it was granted in encomienda to Francisco de Olmos; in 1531 it passed to the Crown, in 1532 it became a corregimiento and in 1558 an alcaldía mayor, and on 27 May 1837 it was recognised as a free municipality. At first it was made up of 480 Indigenous families and 16 mestizo and Spanish ones.

Its parish church dates from the 16th century and its façade shows a double-headed eagle, the emblem on the arms of Charles V. Elders say that on a 14 August shortly after 1603, pilgrims carrying the Virgin of the Assumption toward Huamuxtitlán in Guerrero were driven by a storm to shelter in Piaxtla's parish church; when they tried to go on, the image kept growing heavier, so they sold it to doña Catalina for five measures of gold, and it has been the village's patron ever since.