San Gregorio Zacapechpan

Zacapechpan comes from the Nahuatl zacapechtli, 'hay', and pan, 'place': 'on the hay'. The San Gregorio of the name is the village's patron saint. With 6,699 residents in 2020 it is the third-largest locality in San Pedro Cholula municipality, after the seat, Cholula de Rivadavia (102,260), and Santiago Momoxpan (20,283).

The census shows a sharp jump. In 1900 some 457 people lived here, 1,096 in 1950 and 3,107 in 1980. In 1990 the count was 6,694, and since then the figure has hovered around six or seven thousand: 5,919 in 2000, 6,959 in 2010 and 6,699 in 2020. The growth tracks that of the Puebla metropolitan zone, about 16 km away.

The municipality takes pride in highly productive farmland thanks to fertile soil and year-round irrigation. Growers raise flowers, such as cempasúchil, cloud flower and various chrysanthemums, and vegetables including spring onion, coriander, radish, spinach and broccoli, sold mostly at Mexico City's Central de Abastos. Rain-fed plots carry beans and native maize. It is one of the municipality's auxiliary boroughs, a few minutes from the roads towards Puebla.