San Marcos de León

San Marcos de León, usually just called San Marcos locally, sits between two Pueblos Mágicos: the road from Coatepec to Xico runs straight through the village. It lies at 1,099 metres, about 3.8 km east of the town of Xico, whose municipality it belongs to. The 2020 census counted 7,738 people, which makes it the second-largest of the municipality's 92 localities after Xico itself; it had 6,559 residents in 2005 and 7,256 in 2010.

The village takes its name from its patron saint, Mark the Evangelist. For about fifty years it carried a different official name: from 1932 to 1985 it was "Emilio F. Betancourt", in honour of the Cuban educator Emilio Fuentes y Betancourt, who headed the Escuela Normal Veracruzana teacher-training college in Xalapa. The old name came back in 1985.

The climate is mild and wet. The average temperature is around 19 °C, and on average it rains on roughly 300 days a year, so pack an umbrella whatever the month. For visitors, San Marcos is mostly a place you pass through on the short drive between Coatepec and Xico, a few minutes from each, along a main street lined with tile-roofed houses.