Huitzila

Huitzila takes its name from the Nahuatl huitzillin, hummingbird, plus the suffix tlan, which marks abundance: "place where hummingbirds abound". The village stands at about 2,380 metres, a couple of kilometres southeast of Soledad Atzompa, the municipal seat, in the Sierra de Zongolica and close to the Cumbres de Acultzingo, where the old free road drops from Puebla toward Orizaba.

It is the third most populous of the municipality's 36 localities. In 2020 it had 1,525 residents, nearly twelve times the 129 of 1900. The biggest jump came in recent decades: from 547 in 1990 to 1,186 in 2010.

The municipality of Soledad Atzompa covers about 116 km² between 1,370 and 3,100 metres and borders the state of Puebla to the south. Above two thousand metres the climate is temperate mountain weather, with a mean of about 13 °C, rain for most of the year and winter mornings that can dip below freezing. Communications are limited: in 2020 fewer than half the homes had a mobile phone and very few had internet, so let whoever is expecting you know in advance.