Santiago Tianguistenco

(Santiago) Tianguistenco
City & Municipality
Municipul Palace of Santiago Tianguistenco
(Santiago) Tianguistenco Location in Mexico
Coordinates: 19°10′50″N 99°28′06″W / 19.18056°N 99.46833°W / 19.18056; -99.46833
Country	Mexico
State	State of Mexico
Founded	1500s
Municipal Status	1820
Government
• Municipal President	Alfredo Rodríguez Castro
Area
• Municipality	121.53 km2 (46.92 sq mi)
Elevation (of seat)	2,620 m (8,600 ft)
Population (2005) Municipality
• Municipality	64,365
• Seat	19,033
Time zone	CST (UTC-6)
Postal code (of seat)	52600

Santiago Tianguistenco, often just simply called Tianguistenco, is a city and municipality located in Mexico State about thirty km south of the state capital of Toluca. It is located in the southwest part of the Valley of Toluca at the edge of the Ajusco mountain range that separates it from Mexico City. The name Tianguistenco (Tyanguistengko) is from Nahuatl and means “at the edge of the tianguis,” which is a traditional Aztec market. (Santiago comes from the town’s early Spanish name of “Villa de Santiago.”) The section of the city where the industrial park is still bears this name. Historically, the area was known as having one of the richest and best-stocked markets in the Toluca Valley. Today, it is still home to a large permanent municipal market as well as a weekly tianguis that covers much of the historic center.

In addition to the commerce, the municipality is home to a major industrial site that produces commercial trucks. The municipality is also home to a community called Gualupita, famous for its wool items, Santiago Tilapa, which as a patron festival known in Mexico State and the Atenco Hacienda where bullfighting in Mexico got its start.

No archeological finds in this area date before the Postclassic period. However, Olmec era finds in neighboring Almoloya del Río indicate that there was human inhabitants here at least as early as 1300 BCE. Evidence of Teotihuacan settlement or influence was found in the same area. Most of the archeological finds are concentrated on what used to be the shores of a lake in this area and the Tetépetl Mountain. In the municipality proper, the remains of a population center called Teotenanco appear between 1050 and 1260 C. E. with constructions reminiscent of Teotihuacan. In the center is a ceremonial precinct that was probably the center of a local theocracy. The earliest known ethnic group here is the Matlatzincas. This area, along with the rest of the Toluca Valley, was conquered by Axayacatl and brought into the Aztec Empire in the 1470s.