HISTORY 

Tehuacán is the second largest city in the Mexican state of Puebla, nestled in the Southeast Valley of Tehuacán, bordering the states of Oaxaca and Veracruz. The 2010 census reported a population of 248,716 in the city and 274,906 in its surroundingmunicipality of the same name, of which it serves as municipal seat. The municipality has an area of 390.36 km² (150.72 sq mi).^[1]

Originally a Native American settlement, it became officially a city in the Viceroyalty of New Spain in 1660. According to the archaeologist Richard Stockton MacNeish, the Valley of Tehuacán is the first place maize was ever cultivated by humankind. He arrived at this conclusion when he found over 10,000 teoscintle cobs in what is now known as the Cave of Coxcatlan.

In the late nineteenth century, the city was well known for its mineral springs. In fact,Peñafiel (now owned by Cadbury Schweppes), a well known soft drinks manufacturer, extracts water from these wells for use in their products. Tehuacán also has an important cluster of poultry producers, making the city and its surroundings one of the most important egg producing regions in Mexico.^[2]

After the NAFTA agreement had been signed, Tehuacán saw a flood of textilemaquiladoras established in the city and surrounding areas. These textile factories principally put together blue jeans for export to companies such as The Gap, Guess,Old Navy, and JC Penney. At the height of the maquila (short for maquiladora) boom, there were an estimated number of more than 700 maquilas in town, including those that were operating from homes, often in secret. While this situation created a negative unemployment (zero unemployment) and the maquilas sought workers as far away asOrizaba and Córdoba in the neighboring state of Veracruz, it also created an urban and environmental nightmare. In one decade, Tehuacán went from being a town of 150,000 inhabitants to a city of 360,000. Although many maquilas have closed today, in 2007 there were still over 700 of them found in Tehuacán.^[3] Due to the poverty of the families living in Tehuacán, child labour in the maquilas is common, and worker's rights are often exploited there. Additionally, chemicals such as caustic soda, chlorine, peroxide,oxalic acid, sodium bisulphate, potassium permanganate, and sodium hexametaphosphate are being discharged into the freshwater supplies by the jean laundries. Despite having new purifying technologies available at certain large facilities, they are still not being used the majority of the time. The water, which contains heavy metals such as mercury, lead, copper, zinc, chrome, cadmium and selenium is then used by the farmers to irrigate their land. The cost of environmental deterioration in 2002 was estimated to be $63 billion per year.^[4]

Historically, the Valley of Tehuacán is important to the whole of Mexico, as the most ancient forms of cultivated maize known were found here by archeologists.

Geography

Tehuacán is located in the southeastern part of the State of Puebla. Northern bordering cities are Tepanco de López, Santiago Miahuatlán, Vicente Guerrero y Nicolás Bravo; Eastern Vicente Guerrero, San Antonio Cañada y Ajalpan; Southern San Gabriel Chilac, Zapotitlán, San Antonio Texcala y Altepexi; and Western Zapotitlán, San Martín Atexcal, Juan N. Méndez y Tepanco de López.

1.- Location
Tehuacán is located in the southeastern part of the state of Puebla, bordering to the north with Tepanco Lopez, Santiago Miahuatlan, Nicolás Bravo, and Vicente Guerrero, on the east by Vicente Guerrero, San Antonio Creek and Ajalpan, to the south San Gabriel Chilac, Zapotitlan and Altepexi and on the west by Zapotitlan, St. Maarten Atexcal, Juan N. Mendez and Tepanco Lopez.

2.- Area
Tehuacán, represents 1.15% of the area of the state of Puebla, covering an area of approximately 390.36 km2.

3.- Climate
Most of the municipality of Tehuacan (31.61% of its total area) has a semidry, mid warm climate (BS1h), the area has a rain shadow effect that is formed by the mountains of Zongolica, located between the Valley and the Gulf Mexico. The city of Tehuacan has semidry, arid weather with an annual average temperature of 18.6 ° C in winter and a fresh annual rainfall of 479.5 mm.
It is worth mentioning that the low rainfall in the valley has led to very rich soil, because through the pass a minimal amount of water does not cause the loss of much mineral material. Because of this the quantities of bases such as calcium, magnesium and potassium, are considerable.
The percentage of winter rains over the total annually is less than 5%. The prevailing winds follow directions east and southeast, with a speed of between 6 and 11 kilometers per hour for the former and from 13 to 26 km for the latter, especially during the months of February and March. There are 6 to 8 dry months during the year, with minimal freezing occurring in the Tehuacan Valley during the months of November to February when some frost then presents itself. During April and May hailstorms occur, few of which are of considerable size.
In the community of Santa Catarina Otzolotepec and its vicinity (27.32% of the municipal area) the climate is temperate and humid with summer rainfall in the low humidity range. The rest of Tehuacan has a dry to semidry climate, a semi warm temperature with rain in the summer and high humidity.