San Buenaventura Atempan

San Buenaventura Atempan is a locality in the municipality of Tlaxcala, at 2,268 metres above sea level and a few kilometres north-east of the capital's centre. INEGI counted 2,155 inhabitants in the 2020 census and 2,068 in 2010. Its patron is St Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, and the Nahuatl name, from atl (water), tentli (lip, edge) and pan, means roughly "at the water's edge".

Atempan has a place in the story of the Conquest. The Enciclopedia de los Municipios says the hermitage of San Buenaventura was raised at the same time as the brigantines, under Hernán Cortés, and that nearby stood the first improvised shipyard of New Spain, where the boats later assembled on Lake Texcoco were built; chroniclers speak of twelve or thirteen, depending on the source. Of the original hermitage only a few half-ruined walls remain, with a plaque recalling the shipyard. The newer church keeps some old images and holds the remains of the Tlaxcalan playwright Miguel N. Lira. In 1927 the barrios of San Buenaventura, Atempan and San Gabriel together had about six thousand people.

The village's other monument is its old aqueduct, with brick arches and ashlar walls and two conical turrets, still standing beside a street. The patron fiesta is on 15 July. For visitors coming from downtown, the Fuente de los Bergantines, at the north end of Bulevar Guillermo Valle, built between 1963 and 1968 by the sculptor Cutberto Escalante, recalls the same history with ten carved ships at the base and one on top.