San Jerónimo Tecuanipan

Tecuani is Nahuatl for a wild, devouring beast, and the ending pan makes it a place: Tecuanipan would be the spot where fierce animals lived. The landscape today is much tamer. This town of 2,545 people (2020 figure), at 2,144 m, heads one of the smallest municipalities in the state, just 39.72 km², created in 1895. It lies about 11 km from Cholula and 21 km in a straight line from Puebla city.

Its documented landmark is the church of San Jerónimo, which INEGI dates to the 16th century and which gives the town its saint. Around it, the municipality borders Calpan and San Pedro Cholula to the north, Nealtican and San Nicolás de los Ranchos to the west, toward Popocatépetl, and Santa Isabel Cholula, San Gregorio Atzompa and San Andrés Cholula to the south and east. It is almost entirely farmland: 94% of the ground is cultivated and only a small remnant keeps forest. Water drains toward the Atoyac and Nexapa, within the great Balsas basin.

The climate is mild, averaging 14 to 18 °C with 800 to 1,000 mm of rain a year. Local crafts have an unusually practical side: besides pottery, flower arrangements and woollen weaving, people here make concrete block, metates and metlapiles, the grinding stone and its hand roller for maize. At feasts there is mole poblano, pipián, tamales and chileatole, with tejocote sweets for dessert alongside atole or hot chocolate. The INEGI municipal compendium counts 82 speakers of indigenous languages, mostly Nahuatl.