Xaltocan

Xaltocan, officially San Martín Xaltocan until 1964, is the seat of the municipality of the same name in central Tlaxcala, at about 2,450 m and some 12 km west of Apizaco. The 2020 census counted 1,328 people in the village itself, though it runs almost seamlessly into Topilco de Juárez, its neighbour to the east. The Nahuatl name is read two ways, "sandy ground of spiders" or "where seed is sown in sand", both built on xalli, sand. It is not the Xaltocan in Nextlalpan, State of Mexico.

An 1832 map already records a town council of San Martín Xaltocan; by 1882 it was a municipality under the Apizaco subprefecture, and in 1919 it became a free municipality. In February 1905 local man Andrés García gathered people here to protest against the taxes of governor Próspero Cahuantzi; García was murdered the same year, and his death is counted among the forerunners of the Revolution in Tlaxcala.

Xaltocan is quarry country for grey cantera stone, and its workshops carve fountains, columns, monuments and figures. The sculptor Cutberto Escalante (1913-1984), a pupil of Siqueiros at San Carlos, came from here; he carved the arms of the four Tlaxcalan lordships in local stone and built the monumental staircase of the Government Palace in Tlaxcala city. The church of San Martín Caballero has a cantera façade, an atrium wall of inverted arches and a tower dated 1720; a side nave dedicated to Jesús Nazareno holds a carved wooden Baroque altarpiece from the 17th century. St Martin is celebrated on 10 and 11 November with a fair and dance, and at carnival Xaltocan's huehue troupe invites those of Cuatla and Topilco to dance in the plaza and the church atrium.