Tomatlán

Tomatlán is the seat of one of Veracruz's smallest municipalities, barely 19 km² of hill country in the centre of the state, wedged between Coscomatepec, Ixhuatlán del Café, Córdoba and Chocamán. The town, home to 4,415 people in 2020, stands at 1,362 metres in the Jamapa river basin, with a semi-warm, humid climate averaging 16 to 20 °C and rain in most months. The name is Nahuatl for "place where tomatoes abound".

People lived here long before the Spanish arrived. About 3 km east lies La Yerbabuena, an Olmec-period settlement that worked as a workshop for obsidian tools. It is the source of the stela known as Monument 1 or "El Rey", showing a local ruler wearing the headdress of the Olmec maize god. In the 15th century a settlement called Quechultenango, "wall of quetzals", was founded, and in colonial times the town was known as San Miguel Quechultenango Tomatlán. It became a municipality on 18 January 1825 and a free municipality in 1918.

The centre revolves around the parish church of San Miguel Arcángel and the town hall. Locals tell of a house with a five-pointed star set into its floor, linked to the trials by ordeal of colonial justice. Maps still mark the site of the old Tomatlán railway station. The economy rests on sugarcane and chicken farming, followed by coffee and cattle.

Beyond town, the rivers are the draw. On the Tlacotalpan there is a natural stone bridge, a huge boulder jammed between two rock walls that serves as a crossing; nearby are the Puente de Arco, built in 1805, the Cuevas de Carón and La Junta, or Paso Canoas, where the Tlacotalpan meets the Jamapa. The main fiesta honours San Miguel Arcángel on 29 September with a fair, dances and fireworks, and Holy Week brings a Passion play. Local cooking means mole de olla, rancho-style tamales, chilatole and sweets of tejocote, peach and chayote.