Apaxco (Otomi: ) is a municipality located in the Zumpango Region (northeastern part of the State of Mexico) in Mexico. The municipal territory is located at a southern pass leading out of the Mezquital Valley about northeast of the state capital of Toluca. The name Apaxco comes from Nahuatl (meaning "place of the water fall").
The municipality, founded on October 16, 1870, covers an area of . Apaxco de Ocampo is a municipal seat, and is a border city with Vito and El Refugio (between the State of Mexico and the State of Hidalgo; inside of Cuenca cementera). It is an important area for the building industry, although it has ecological problems.
Geography
The town of Apaxco de Ocampo is a municipal seat, with jurisdiction over the following communities: Coyotillos, Santa María, Loma Bonita, Pérez de Galeana and Colonia Juárez. The total municipality extends 84.37 km and borders with the municipalities of Tequixquiac and Hueypoxtla, and with Atotonilco de Tula and Ajacuba (in the State of Hidalgo).
The Gran Canal de Desagüe is an artificial channel that crosses Apaxco, and was named Xothé river in the Otomi language. This channel connects with the Tula River and the Endhó dam. Other small rivers are Treviño, Zarco, El Codo and Teña, which connect with the Gran Canal. Apaxco has thermal waters, and subterranean rivers with hot springs, called Los Bañitos.
The municipal seat is in a small, elongated valley, but most of the municipality is on a high mesa which transitions from the Valley of Mexico to the Mezquital Valley. The highest mountains in Apaxco are the Cerro El Estudiante, Cerro Teña, Cerro Coyotillos, Cerro Blanco and Cerro Pelón in Tezontlalpan Sierra. Other mountains are Cerro Mesa Ahumada (or Cerro Colorado) in the border between the municipalities of Huehuetoca and Tequixquiac. In the center of Apaxco de Ocampo is a low relief known as El Hoyo (the hole), which according to popular belief is the crater of a meteorite; the Aztec people called the depression apatztli in the Nahuatl language.
Apaxco municipality is a rural territory of the Central Mexican Plateau, in the south of the Mezquital Valley, and has a semi-desert climate.
Flora and fauna
Since the area is mainly semi-desert land with calcium stones, the plants consist of cacti and trees with low water needs. Apaxco has chollas, prickly pears, mesquites, huizaches, golden barrels, creosote bush, and century plants. In the high Sierra de Tetzontlalpan, there are oaks, piñon pines and cedars. In Cerro Mesa Ahumada there are other species such as ferns, tejocote trees, white zapote trees, kidneywood trees, tepozans, and visnagas.
Apaxco has many native animals. Birds include the owl, eagle, falcon, turkey, colibri, turkey vulture, northern mockingbird, rufous-crowned sparrow, lesser roadrunner, and roadrunner. The reptiles and amphibians include rattlesnakes, pine snakes, xincoyotes, axolotls, frogs, and toads. The insects include red ants and bees. Apaxco has two mountain ranges, where there is a diversity in mammals. To the south is Cerro Mesa Ahumada with cacomistle, skunk, gopher, Virginia opossum, rabbit, and Mexican gray squirrel and to the north the Sierra de Tetzontlalpan is home to bobcat, coyote, and hare.
This region was once inhabited by megafauna such as Cuvieronius, mammoth, glyptodonts and others.
History
The first settlers in the region date to 5000 BC, evidenced by stone carvings around the mountains. These were Otomian group ancestors. The civilizations that followed had a direct relationship with the Teotihuacan civilization, until they declined between 650 and 900 AD. They were afterwards dominated by the Toltecs.
The most important source about Apaxco in pre-Columbian history is the Codex Boturini, which shows on page XI Atotonilco and Apaxco during the pilgrimage to the mythical promised city of the Aztecs. Apaxco was the place where they celebrated the second new fire before continuing their way south, towards Ecatepec, ending their long pilgrimage on the banks of the hill of Chapultepec.
With the rise of the Aztec Empire, Apaxco and the neighboring region came under the government of Tlacopan, one of the members of the Triple Alliance. Tenochcas subjugated the Otomi people and founded the Teotlalpan, a desert region with abundant mountains. Apaxco, Tula and Ajoloapan were places rich in lime which was a very coveted mineral for building, and was used as a tax payment to the Aztec empire.