Venustiano Carranza

Many people in the region still call it Agua Fría, "cold water", which is exactly what its original Nahuatl name, Atlytztic, means: atl, water, tztiz, cold, plus a place suffix. Totonac and Otomí groups settled here and paid tribute to Texcoco, and in colonial times the hamlet was known as Agua Fría. The present name came with the decree of 29 August 1951, which created a new municipality from localities split off from Jalpan, in the old Huauchinango district, and named it after the president murdered at Tlaxcalantongo. In 2020 the town had 6,072 residents and it sits only about 120 m up, at the edge of the coastal plain, 23 km in a straight line from Poza Rica and 36 km from Papantla, both across the line in Veracruz.

The calendar revolves around the Virgin of Guadalupe, patron of the parish church, a 20th-century building. 12 December is the big day of the year: masses, baptisms and weddings, processions coming down from the outlying neighbourhoods and ranches, traditional dances, a jaripeo, fireworks and brass bands, and alongside it the Feria de Agua Fría, with shows on the Teatro del Pueblo stage and traders from around the area selling their goods. At Easter the Way of the Cross heads out towards El Chijolito along the road to La Desviación de Agua Fría, and on 1 and 2 November families build Huastec-style Day of the Dead altars. On Avenida 16 de Septiembre stands the monument to the municipality's founders, which locals call las cabezas, "the heads", and there is another to Carranza himself.

Heat rules here: averages run from 22 to 26 °C with 1,400 to 1,600 mm of rain, and almost two thirds of the land has a hot, humid climate. Pasture covers more than two fifths of the municipality and tropical forest about a fifth; the Cazones and San Marcos rivers cross it, and the San Marcos is best seen from Villa Lázaro Cárdenas, where every 18 March since 2011 the Oil Festival marks the 1938 expropriation with a school parade, sport and concerts. More than a thousand residents speak indigenous languages, mainly Nahuatl, Totonac and Otomí. The kitchen offers zacahuil, the giant Huastec tamale, along with smoked chicken, mole and pipián; for dessert there are marcaculli and cinnamon preserves, and to drink, chocolate, coffee and jobo wine. Local people work clay and timber.