Santa María Atexcac

Santa María Atexcac is one of the eight juntas auxiliares of the municipality of Huejotzingo in west-central Puebla, on the eastern slope of the Iztaccíhuatl volcano, several kilometres from the municipal seat. Its square stands at about 2,400 m, and it had 2,936 people in 2020. The name joins the Virgin Mary with the Nahuatl Atexcac, from atl, water, texcalli, rock, and co, in: "in the water that springs from the rock". It is not to be confused with the Atexcac crater lake in the east of the state.

The village was founded in the era of the great haciendas, and there are two versions of its origin. One says it was formed by groups who left the haciendas of San Diego Buenavista, Rancho Cabra and San Sebastián del Monte. The other says it was settled around 1857 by two families, one from Xaltepetlapan and one from Santa María de las Nieves Nepopualco, and that they gave rise to the village's two quarters, de Abajo and de Arriba, lower and upper.

Atexcac lies on the transition between the Puebla valley and the Sierra Nevada. By convention the valley begins below 2,500 m; between 2,500 and 3,000 m are the lower slopes of the range, and above them the Sierra Nevada itself, culminating in Iztaccíhuatl on the State of Mexico line. On the volcano you can make out the Head, 5,146 m, the Chest, 5,383 m, and the Feet, 4,740 m.