Alto Lucero

Alto Lucero is the seat of the municipality of Alto Lucero de Gutiérrez Barrios, in central Veracruz, about 35 km from the state capital, Xalapa. The town sits on a high shelf in the foothills of the Sierra de Chiconquiaco, at a little over 1,100 m, and had 5,238 people at the 2020 census; the whole municipality, which runs from the coffee-growing hills down to the Gulf of Mexico coast, had 28,184 in 137 localities. The municipality's coat of arms shows the town on its mesa under a morning star, with the maize, sugar cane, cattle and mangoes of the lowlands and the coffee of the sierra. Farming is mostly rain-fed, and the main crops are mango, banana, tomato, sugar cane, coffee and maize.

The area was originally Totonac. According to the Diccionario Enciclopédico Veracruzano, the Spanish founded a settlement called Pacheco in 1708, and in 1860 its people, driven out by unhealthy conditions, moved to the present site, which took the name Alto Lucero Pacheco in honour of their leader, Cecilia Lucero Pacheco. The area belonged to Actopan until 15 January 1930, when sixteen congregaciones were separated to form the new municipality. On 29 January 1991 the state congress renamed it Alto Lucero de Gutiérrez Barrios after Fernando Gutiérrez Barrios, governor of Veracruz and later federal interior minister, whose government built the road between Alto Lucero and Xalapa. Mexico's only nuclear power station, Laguna Verde, was built in the 1970s on the coast of the municipality, near Punta Limón.

Alto Lucero is best known as the birthplace and childhood home of the ranchera singer Paquita la del Barrio (1947–2025). After her death in February 2025 the town held a mass for her at the parish of Cristo Rey del Universo and a public homage on its esplanade, with her portrait, her ashes and her songs. Cristo Rey is the town's patron, and his fiesta is held in November. The centre is a small square with shade trees, red benches and a two-storey red-and-cream kiosk, and the town is reached by a winding road through the hills. Typical local food includes ranch-style tamales, pepitas, chiles rellenos and longaniza.