Zempoala

History

The name comes from the Nahuatl for twenty, read as place of twenties and linked to a market held every twenty days. The area was inhabited from the Preclassic period onward. It had ties to Teotihuacan and later to the powers of the Basin of Mexico, among them Azcapotzalco and Texcoco, to which the province fell in 1430.

The Spanish arrived around 1540. Augustinians were the first missionaries, and the Franciscans took over soon after. In 1555 the Franciscan friar Francisco de Tembleque began an aqueduct to carry water from springs on the Tecajete hill to Zempoala and Otumba. Finished in 1572 and about 48 kilometers long, it joined European building methods with Mesoamerican know-how. The church and convent of Todos los Santos were built between 1570 and 1585.

From the 17th century the economy turned to farming, livestock, and maguey. In the 18th century the Apan plains specialized in agave and pulque, and haciendas spread across the district. Pulque grew even more important in the 19th century, when railways carried it to distant markets. Zempoala was a municipality by 1862 and joined the new state of Hidalgo in 1869. The aqueduct system was declared World Heritage in 2015, and the town became a Pueblo Mágico in 2020.