Tecolotla

Tecolotla is one of the six localities of the municipality of Apetatitlán de Antonio Carvajal, in central Tlaxcala, and the fifth by population: 926 residents in the 2020 census, at about 2,277 metres. At the entrance stands a sign of coloured letters, red, green, blue and yellow, spelling TECOLOTLA, which serves as a landmark on the road through the community; in photographs it is framed by trees and red volcanic gravel. The name is of Nahuatl origin and recalls the tecolote, the owl.

The community is about 6 km in a straight line from central Tlaxcala city (approx., from coordinates) and about 2.5 km from Chiautempan, in a small municipality of about 7 km² and an average altitude of 2,340 m, bordering Tlaxcala, Chiautempan, Yauhquemehcan, Amaxac de Guerrero and Contla de Juan Cuamatzi. About 90% of Tecolotla's residents say they are Catholic, according to a locality directory.

Tecolotla has no published monuments of its own; what is visited in Apetatitlán is concentrated in the seat, San Pablo Apetatitlán, about 7 km from Tlaxcala by the Tlaxcala–Chiautempan–Apetatitlán road: the Parroquia de San Pablo, made a parish in 1767, and the Templo de Jesús, built in stages between the 17th and 19th centuries. The municipality also carves religious figures from ayacahuite wood, with glass eyes and articulated limbs, and Tlatempan makes carnival masks. Municipal festivities include the carnival of San Pablo Apetatitlán, the start of Todos Santos on 28 October, and the feast of San Pablo and San Pedro, with a novena starting nine days before 29 June.