Cristo Redentor

The Cristo Redentor of Tihuatlán is a monumental statue of Christ with outstretched arms that stands on a hill above the town of Tihuatlán, in northern Veracruz, between Tuxpan and Poza Rica. It was clearly inspired by the famous statue on Corcovado in Rio de Janeiro, and local and national press like to point out that it is slightly taller. Published figures for its height vary between about 31.5 and 35 m depending on how it is measured; México Desconocido gives 31.5 m for the figure, with a 3.8 m head, an arm span of about 20.5 m and a weight of around 750 tonnes. Milenio has described it as the third-tallest sculpture in Mexico.

The statue was inaugurated on 3 November 2007 after about 18 months of work. The hands were made at the Talleres Libres de Arte run by the Veracruz artist Teodoro Cano, the painter and sculptor from Papantla. The hill it stands on is given as 114 m high, and from the terrace at the foot of the pedestal there is a view over the whole town.

Tihuatlán, whose name is usually traced to the Nahuatl for "place of women", likes to call itself a city of sculptures. Besides the Christ it has a sculpture of the "divine woman" that gives the town its name, a sculpture garden, a Totonac woman monument and a monument to the Danza de la Vaca, the cow dance performed at dawn on 4 October for the town's patron, Saint Francis of Assisi. The municipality sits on the border between the Huastec and Totonac worlds and is also known in the state as the capital of furniture making, so a visit to the statue combines easily with a walk through the town centre and its many carpentry shops.