Museo del Caracol

Tepalcatepec Municipality
Municipality
Country	Mexico
State	Michoacán
Established	June 22,1877
Municipal seat	Tepalcatepec
Government
• Municipal president	Aurelio Arreguin Madriiz (PRD)
Area
• Total	780.22 km2 (301.24 sq mi)
Elevation	370 m (1,210 ft)
Population  (2010)
• Total	42,234
Time zone	UTC-6 (CST)
• Summer (DST)	UTC-5 (CDT)

Tepalcatepec is a municipality in the mexican state of Michoacan.

Political entity

The municipality is located on the coordinates 19º11' N 102º51' W and it is 370 m over the sea level. It has a 780.22 Km² (square kilometers) surface, and represents the 1.33% of the State territory. It has a population of about 24,678 people and its organization and structure is made of: City Clerk, Treasury, Public Works, Municipal Social Development, Public Security and Administrative Office. It also exists one Chief Tenur and 54 custodians of order. The actual mayor is Aurelio Arreguin Madriiz (2015-2018).

In the city you can see architectural monuments such as the Parish of San Francisco , the City Hall , the Gates and Av . Melchor Ocampo. And there are also no museums. The typical food of the municipality is jerky , morisqueta , atole , tamales of butter , goat tatemado and Blackcap.

On September 15 and 16, is the celebration of national holidays and on October 4, is the celebration in honor of its town leader San Francisco.

Geography and environment

The coordinates are 19º11' N 102º51' W and it is 370 m over the sea level. It has a 780.22 Km² (square kilometers) surface, and represents the 1.33% of the State territory. Its relief is constituted by the Sierra Madre del Sur, Tepalcatepec depression and the hills of Cabeza de Vaca, la Chuta, la Cocina and la Romera.

His hydrography is constituted by the rivers Tepalcatepec, las Mesas, Pinolapa, Colomititán and Los Otates. And its climate is tropical and dry steppe with summer rains . It has an annual rainfall of 822.0 mm , and temperatures ranging between 12.0 and 44.5 degrees Celsius. In the municipality it dominates the tropical deciduous forest with tepeguaje, ceiba, zapote, guaje and mando. And the thorn forest with amolé, cardones, teteches, viejitos and huisaches. The forest surface timber is occupied by oak and pine, thickets and non-timber species characteristic of lowland . The municipality also has deposits of iron, barite and silver. The grounds of the municipality date from the periods Cenozoic , Mesozoic and Cretaceous , and relate mainly to the type of brown, mountain gray , chestnut and mountain meadow . They are intended primarily for livestock and forestry, and to a lesser extent in agricultural work .

History

The meaning of Tepalcatepec is "hill of piece of clay". It was created because the mexicas were on the state and the origin of this town was on the south near to the hacienda "El Consengue" and it goes over hundreds of years before the chichimecas. It was given to Alonso Avalos as an entrusts, but he went to Spain and never come back. And it became Christian because of the franciscans of Tancítaro.

At the beginning it only had 685 people and belonged to the town of Coahuayana. The people sold cotton and salt to the Tabasco Empire. On 1580 the spanish living there lived from the cacao orchards and the cattle stays and produced corn and cotton in big quantities. In the seventeenth century it was a party of Indians, and the town was managed by a priest and had 19 neighbors, belonged Chilatán and Alima neighborhoods, as well as the town of Santa Ana and the Xilotlán. Counted with hospitals that where supported of small livestock. On December 10,1831, it was given the title of town that belonged to Apatzingan, and on June 22,1877, it was stablished as a town. Miguel Baca Valencia (1884-1953) was a militar that was President of the town. He defends de people of the cristero movement attacks.