Cosoleacaque

Cosoleacaque is the seat of the municipality of the same name in southern Veracruz, in the Olmec region, about 9 km west of the centre of Minatitlán and now part of that city's metropolitan area. The town had 22,521 people at the 2020 census, while the whole municipality, which also takes in industrial suburbs and the Minatitlán/Coatzacoalcos international airport, is much larger. The name is usually explained as Nahuatl for "on the summit of the cojolites", after the crested guan, a large forest bird, and the town remains one of the Nahua communities of the south of the state.

People have lived here a long time: a low mound in the town called El Cubilete has traces of occupation from the Early Preclassic, around 1500–1200 BC, when the Olmec culture flourished in these lowlands. The present town was founded by Nahua migrants from the central highlands in the Postclassic period, first on the right bank of the Tonalá river near La Venta. Raids by the pirate Lorencillo in the late 17th century scattered its people, and in 1717 they moved to the current site. On 18 October 1863 Republican troops, helped by local Indigenous fighters, beat back a French and conservative column at the Totoapan stream on the edge of town, killing its commander Dubosq; the local hero of the battle is remembered as Martín "El Lancero". Cosoleacaque became a municipality in 1931, a villa in 1963 and in 1977 a city with the title of Heroica. Its petrochemical complex was once the world's largest producer of ammonia.

The centre is built around the white twin-towered parish church of the Preciosa Sangre de Cristo, which also holds the crucifix of the Señor de la Salud, brought from Mecatepec in Tabasco in 1937 during the religious persecution. Local artisans still make brightly coloured blouses, sashes and table linen, and weave rebozos on hand looms, and a few potters work clay. Food here means mole, boiled-dough tamales and beef broth, and above all popo, a frothy cacao drink traditionally served in a gourd at fiestas and weddings.