San Salvador el Verde

San Salvador el Verde is the seat of the municipality of the same name in west-central Puebla, about 40 km from the state capital and 85 km from Mexico City. The town stands at about 2,410 m and had 2,921 people in 2020. Its old name was Xopalican, from xopalli, green, and can, place: "green place".

Families from Huejotzingo founded it around 1520, at the old Xopalican. Because Huejotzingo allied with the Spaniards, its people took part in the fall of Tenochtitlan. Then came the encomienda system and cattle and farming haciendas; an epidemic drove many away, and on their return they settled on land donated by doña María Costitlán Xóchitl, after which the town was called San Salvador el Verde. It belonged to the old district of Huejotzingo. The shell of the former Chautla hacienda survives in the municipality.

The municipality, about 109 km², climbs from 2,300 m on the Puebla-Tlaxcala valley floor to over 5,200 m at the summit of Iztaccíhuatl at its western end, and borders the State of Mexico at Tlalmanalco. The climate is mild and sub-humid, with rain from May to October and a mean of 16 °C; in winter the high ground reaches 0 °C. Much of it is forest, and the farmland yields cabbage, onion, coriander, maize, beans, broad beans, wheat, mulato chillies, tejocote, pears, apples, walnuts and flowers such as gladioli, chrysanthemums, roses and marigolds.