Opodepe

Opodepe is the seat of the municipality of the same name in north-central Sonora, on land the Ópata people held before the Spanish arrived. The name comes from their language and translates as the field or plain of the ironwood, the very hard tree of the Sonoran Desert. The town was founded in 1649 as the mission of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción de Opodepe. The town keeps its church and its municipal plaza.

It sits about 650 meters up, among low hills and flats, and gets a little over 400 mm of rain a year. The town has been emptying out: it reached 1,050 people in 1950, had 515 in 1990 and counted 295 in the 2020 census. Meanwhile Querobabi, the settlement of the same municipality right on Federal Highway 15, grew from 900 people in 1980 to 3,900 in 2005; it holds what little industry the area has, kilns making brick, roof tile and floor tile, mostly sold to the United States.

The rest of the municipality lives from farming and cattle, and much of what is planted, such as ryegrass, barley, sorghum and alfalfa, is feed for the herds. Also in the municipality is Tuape, a hamlet of about 75 people with its own mission of San Miguel.