San Damián Tlacocalpan

San Damián Tlacocalpan is one of the four localities of the municipality of Amaxac de Guerrero and the second largest: it had 972 inhabitants at the 2020 census, up from 753 in 2010 and 559 in 2005, while the municipal seat, Amaxac, has more than 10,000. It sits at about 2,505 m above sea level in a temperate highland climate (mean annual temperature 13.7 °C and roughly 670 mm of rain a year), and the seat is about 6 km away in a straight line. Cerro Ostol (2,474 m) and Cerro El Fuerte (2,575 m) rise nearby.

The community shows up in the record from the 16th century. The Códice de San Damián Tlacocalpan, made around the middle of that century in the province of Tlaxcala, is a genealogy of Tlotli ("Hawk") and a map of the noble houses (tecalhuan) of its territory, with about 38 human figures and glosses in Nahuatl and Spanish; some name Pablo de Galicia, governor of Tlaxcala around 1561-1562. Raúl Macuil Martínez published the first study of the document in 2021, working from a photocopy held by the Archivo Histórico del Estado de Tlaxcala. In 1771 a plague nearly wiped out the people of San Damián, according to the history published by the municipality.

The centre is built around the chapel of San Damián on calle 16 de Septiembre, listed as a historic monument, and the public library on the same street. The patron saints are San Damián and San Cosme, and their fair is held every year in September: the façade is decorated, the church fills with flower arrangements, a teponaztli is played at the entrance and stalls selling snacks and sweets line the street beside the church.

The village was also known for craft trade: in the 1990s its residents supplied fairs and carnivals across Mexico with princess crowns, confetti eggs, soap bubbles, wooden canes and charms.