San Lorenzo Chiautzingo

San Lorenzo Chiautzingo sits where the slopes of the Sierra Nevada begin to drop into the Puebla valley, at about 2,360 m and 8 km from Huejotzingo. The name translates as "in the little swamp" or "in the small marsh", and its patron is Saint Lawrence. With 9,197 people in 2020 it is the seat of a municipality of about 22,000.

It was probably founded by Teochichimec groups before the Conquest and depended on Huejotzinco, an independent city-state of the Puebla-Tlaxcala valley. It passed through an encomienda and then to the Crown; in 1837 it was a municipality of Huejotzingo and in 1921 it was recognised as a municipality in its own right. Its parish church of San Lorenzo dates from the 16th century. As in Huejotzingo, carnival happens in the barrios: the photo shows a carnival dancer at the patron festival of the barrio of San Esteban. People here embroider the capes and costumes for those dances, and also make baskets and bags.

The municipality covers about 89 km² and climbs from 2,300 m in the east to over 3,400 m on the slopes of Cerro de Ocotepec, with the Xeniqui ravine and the Llano de la Lobera. It is cold higher up, averaging 6 to 16 °C; a third of the land is forest. The Cotzalá River crosses it from west to east, along with streams such as the Seco, Iztapalapa and Tenango, all feeding the Atoyac. People drink pulque and aguamiel, and in the auxiliary town of San Agustín Atzompa there is a monument to Emiliano Zapata.