San Miguel Tlamahuco

San Miguel Tlamahuco is a locality of Totolac, at 2,262 metres above sea level and less than a kilometre from Tlaxcala city, which lies to the east. The 2020 census counted 1,108 residents. Its population has moved unevenly: 88 people in 1900, 812 in 1970, a drop to 457 in 1980 and 1,010 again by 2010. Acxotla del Río is right beside it, about 300 m to the south, and San Francisco Ocotelulco about 700 m to the west.

The name comes from Nahuatl: tlalli (earth), maitl (hand) and the locative -co, translated as place of cultivators. Local tradition, as set out in Wikipedia's article on the municipality, holds that in pre-Hispanic times the site was home to wise men who advised the towns of the Tlaxcalan confederation. The patron saint is Saint Michael the Archangel, and his church stands on top of a small hill; it was built over the 19th and 20th centuries, and an inscription on the dome's arch carries the date 7 August 1901. Behind it stands the volcano Matlalcueyetl, the Nahuatl name of La Malinche.

To the north rise Cerro Tlaxicoatl (2,535 m), about 2.4 km away, and Cerro Blanco (2,510 m); the climate is temperate highland, with a mean of 15.3 °C and about 740 mm of rain a year. A photograph on Wikimedia Commons shows the "Bienvenidos a Tlamahuco" sign at the village entrance, with local vans parked beneath a sunset sky.