San Salvador Huixcolotla

San Salvador Huixcolotla is the seat of the municipality of the same name in central Puebla, in the Tepeaca valley. The name means "place of curved thorns". The town stands at about 2,040 m and had 14,268 people in 2020. The municipality, about 33 km², is among the smallest in the state and borders Acatzingo, Tecamachalco, Tochtepec, Cuapiaxtla de Madero and Los Reyes de Juárez.

Huixcolotla is known as the cradle of papel picado, the craft of cutting designs into tissue paper, coloured foil or plastic to decorate celebrations. It is thought to descend from pre-Hispanic offerings of amate bark paper; early makers remembered here include Juan Hernández, Cristóbal Flores, Santiago Vivanco and Lauro Pérez Macías. By the late 1920s it had spread to Tlaxcala, and today it is used worldwide, above all for the Day of the Dead, but also for Holy Week, Independence Day, Valentine's Day and Christmas. About 35% of the inhabitants work in the craft, and in 1998 the Puebla government declared the town state cultural heritage.

Huixcolotla's other side is its wholesale market, one of the most important in Puebla, where farm produce from across the state is bought, often for export. The municipality grows maize, beans, pears and plums, and vegetables such as broad beans, chillies, tomatoes, carrots, green beans, tomatillos, lettuce, potatoes and coriander. The parish church of the Divino Salvador stands in the centre.