Tlancualpican

The Nahuatl name Tlancualpican is built from tlani (nearness), cualli (good), atl (water) and pilcac (to hang), and is usually rendered as "near the hanging water". It is the second-largest settlement in the municipality of Chiautla after the seat, Chiautla de Tapia, which lies about 18 km to the southeast as the crow flies; The 2020 census counted 4,719 residents, and it is officially an urban locality. It sits at 978 m on the far western edge of Puebla, roughly 51 km from Cuautla and 85 km from the state capital. The photo shows a stream at the entrance to town, on the road that continues toward Olinalá.

This is the hot country of the Balsas basin. Chiautla is mostly warm and subhumid, with very hot semi-arid patches, average temperatures of 18 to 26 °C and 700 to 900 mm of rain a year. The whole municipality drains to the Atoyac, with the Nexapa as its permanent stream, and more than six tenths of the land is still covered in tropical dry forest, with some woodland on higher ground; only about a quarter is farmed. The landscape turns green with the summer rains and brown in the dry season.

Local trades revolve around leather: hide tanning and work in baqueta and suede, along with wicker basketry. The cooking belongs to the lower Mixteca and the hot lands: pipián with bean tamales, ash tamales, mole poblano, cuatomate salsa, cuahuayote mole and guaje huaxmole. To drink there is mezcal, nanche water or liqueur and a cane spirit fermented with cuatecomate. In the municipal seat, the old Augustinian convent is now the centre of Catholic life in Chiautla, and the Tlanichiautla quarter holds what is considered the municipality's first church, with an image of the Virgin of the Assumption.