Santa María Xonacatepec

Until 1922 Xonacatepec was not part of Puebla: censuses record it from at least 1900 as part of the former municipality of Resurrección, and a decree of 4 April that year separated it and added it to the capital's municipality. Today it is one of the city's auxiliary towns and sits right against the urban area; 17,215 people lived there in 2020. The name comes from Nahuatl xonacatl, onion, and tepetl, hill, and is usually rendered "on the hill of onions". Nobody knows for certain when it was founded.

The town occupies the first slopes of the Malintzin volcano, at about 2,340 m and some 11 km northeast of central Puebla. That is why its surroundings are cut by ravines, opened by streams running down from the summit into the valley. The old road, now Avenida Xonacatepec, links it with the city, and about a kilometre to the south runs the México-Veracruz highway, the 150D. The satellite view shows how the town's streets now blend with the housing estates and fields around it.

The municipality of Puebla, to which it belongs, is mild and sub-humid over most of its area, with a semi-cold strip toward the higher Malinche slopes; averages run from 10 to 16 °C and annual rain from 400 to 900 mm. It is drained by the Atoyac and the Alseseca, which end in the Valsequillo reservoir. More than 42% of the municipality is built up, and most of the rest is farmland, grassland or forest. For anyone coming from here, the capital's historic centre offers Talavera pottery, onyx figures and a cuisine that runs from mole poblano and chiles en nogada to chalupas, cemitas and tripe mole.