Santa Clara Ocoyucan

Ocoyucan means "place of the owners of ocote pines", from ocotl, the resinous pine, yotl, possessive, and can, upon; and forest still covers more than a third of the municipality (35.24%). The village also bears the name of Saint Clare of Assisi, its patron, and the parish church dedicated to her, with tile-clad domes, dates from the 16th century. It is the seat of Ocoyucan, at 2,103 metres, and in 2020 it was home to 6,098 of the municipality's 42,669 people. It is only 9 km from Cholula and about 13 km from central Puebla, inside the Puebla-Tlaxcala metropolitan area.

It was founded by Nahua groups, neighbours of the great lordship of Cholula and of Huejotzingo. Later it was part of the old Cholula district, and in 1895, when the state was reorganised into districts and municipalities, it became a free municipality. Today it covers 120.17 km² between San Andrés Cholula to the north, the capital to the east, Teopantlán to the south, Atlixco to the southwest, Santa Isabel Cholula to the west and San Gregorio Atzompa to the northwest. The Atoyac, the only permanent river, runs through it, and its waters are split among the sub-basins of the Nexapa, the Atoyac–San Martín Texmelucan and the Manuel Ávila Camacho reservoir. Averages run from 14 to 20 °C, with 800 to 1,000 mm of rain a year.

Farming still leads: maize and beans are sown, and orchards grow cherimoya, peaches and avocados; cattle, mules, donkeys, pigs and backyard poultry are raised, and beekeeping does well. An old manufacturing tradition works henequen: fibre is spun and woven, and cords, ropes and scrubbers are made, alongside brick and roof-tile kilns. The village fair is on 12 August, and on 1 November the tonchis dance is performed in memory of the dead. In the kitchen there is mole poblano, pipián and tamales, with chocolate, atole, champurrado, cacao or cider. Some 1,273 people in the municipality spoke an indigenous language in 2020, mostly Nahuatl.