San Francisco Cuapan

Cerro Zapotecas, an old volcano rising in the Cholula valley, is the most visible neighbour of San Francisco Coapan, and it is what the photo shows. The village, which INEGI spells Coapan, belongs to the municipality of San Pedro Cholula, had 2,720 residents in 2020 and lies at about 2,194 metres. It is roughly 6 km from Cholula and 17 to 18 km from downtown Puebla, inside the Puebla–Tlaxcala metropolitan area.

Its municipality has one of the longest histories in the country: Wikipedia notes continuous human settlement since the Middle Preclassic, more than thirty centuries ago, and ancient Cholollan was a great ceremonial centre until the massacre that Hernán Cortés and his Tlaxcalan allies carried out in October 1519. The name Cholula is linked to Nahuatl chololoa, "water falling down". Today San Pedro Cholula has more than 138,000 inhabitants, and nearly six in ten hectares of its land are urban; most of the rest is farmed.

The valley is cooler and drier than the sierra: average temperatures of 14 to 18 °C and 800 to 1,000 mm of rain, concentrated in the warm months. Its water flows to the Atoyac, in the Balsas basin, with seasonal streams such as the Prieto and the Rabanillo. The trades INEGI credits to the municipality are decorative ironwork, fireworks, carving of religious images and marble working. Dishes include bean tamales, asado verde and mole poblano, washed down with blue-corn ponche made with milk or with cider; sweets include alegrías, pepitorias and milk candies.