Zongolica

Zongolica is the seat of the municipality of the same name in the Sierra de Zongolica, the rugged, rainy mountain country southeast of Orizaba in the Altas Montañas region of Veracruz. The town lies in a valley among steep green mountains at about 1,200 m, and had 7,455 people at the 2020 census, out of about 45,000 in the municipality. The Sierra is one of the main Nahua regions of Veracruz, and Nahuatl is widely spoken. The climate is cool and very wet, with an average of about 17 °C and well over 2,000 mm of rain a year, so fog banks and abundant vegetation are part of daily life. The name comes from Nahuatl tzontli, hair, and coliuhqui, twisted: "twisted hair". Coffee is the main crop, along with maize, oranges and mango.

The town was founded by Nonoalca groups, Nahuatl speakers who came from central Mexico; tradition gives the date as 1117. It came under Aztec rule around 1400, Spanish and missionary forces arrived in 1522, and in the 16th century Zongolica was the head of a wide district that included Los Reyes, Tlaquilpa, Mixtla, Astacinga, Tehuipango, Texhuacán, Tezonapa, Coetzala and Omealca. During the War of Independence, Rafael Argüelles and the priests Mariano de las Fuentes and Juan Moctezuma y Cortés raised a force here that took Orizaba in May 1812, seized a large load of tobacco and used the proceeds to set up a mint in Zongolica; its two-real coins, with a bow and arrow, are remembered today. Local tradition also credits the insurgents of Zongolica with an early tricolour flag. The town was made a villa in the colonial and early republican period and a city by decree in 1910.

In town, the main sights are the parish of San Francisco de Asís, the town's patron saint, and the Calvario chapel, founded according to municipal records in 1526, with a Christ statue on the hill behind it. Market days are Thursday and Sunday, when people come down from the mountain villages to sell wool weavings dyed with plants, silk sashes and pottery. The big fiesta of the Señor del Recuerdo runs from 30 April to 15 May, with music, horse races and fairground rides; San Francisco is honoured on 4 October, and on the first Friday of March the Xochitlalli, a Nahua offering to the earth, is held in the cave of Totomochapa. The surrounding sierra is a well-known caving area: the river at Popócatl drops more than 60 m into a sinkhole, El Boquerón is a natural stone bridge more than 25 m high, and the Atlahuitzía and Coxole waterfalls are close by.