Amozoc de Mota
Atlixco
Cholula (Cholula de Rivadabia)
Huauchinango
Puebla
Tulcingo De Valle
San Martín Texmelucan de Labastida
Tehuacán
Teziutlán

Amozoc de Mota
Amozoc de Mota is a city in the central part of the state of Puebla in Mexico. It lies near the southern border of the adjacent state of Tlaxcala, and is the municipal seat of the municipality of Amozoc, which surrounds it. The city is the seventh largest in the state of Puebla, with a 2005 census population of 60,517 inhabitants. While a small city, it has gained international relevance because it is the home of the Autódromo Miguel E. Abed, which hosts a World Touring Car Championship event. (Information provided by Wikipedia. Click on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amozoc_de_Mota for additional information.)

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Atlixco
Atlixco is a rapidly growing city. It is located only 24 km south of the city of Puebla. The weather of the city compared to the surrounding regions of the "Sierra Nevada" (literally "Snowy Mountains"). This makes Atlixco renowned for its benign climate, which varies by only a few degrees Celsius year round. Atlixco, which reported a population of 86,173 in the 2005 census, is located on the foothills of the Popocatépetl volcano. The city is the third-largest community in the state, after Puebla and Tehuacán. The municipality of Atlixco, which has an area of 229.22 km² (88.5 sq mi), reported a population of 122,149. The city is an agricultural, commercial and industrial centre. Alfalfa, flowers, corn, wheat,and fruits are the main crops grown in the area. Textile factories, grain mills, and soft-drink plants are also located in the city, as well as several car dealerships. In the past few decades, Atlixco has increasingly become a preferred area for country houses of residents of the city of Puebla, beginning in the 1970s with the development of the residential complex La Moraleda, and later EL Cristo Golf Club. Important highways link Atlixco with the cities of Puebla and Cuautla. The city also has an airport for private planes. Atlixco also count with a soccer, tennis, cross country, and swimming teams. One of the memorable teams is the Atlixquenses Futbol Club located in La Concha soccer field, champions of Puebla Liberty Cup season 2001-02 when the midfielder Ricardo Marin Scored the last goal who gives them the championship, who late on he moved to Los Angeles California. (Information provided by Wikipedia. Click on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlixco for additional information.)

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Cholula (Cholula de Rivadabia)
The official, though little used, full name of the city is Cholula de Rivadavia. The city of Cholula is divided into two municipalities, San Andrés Cholula and San Pedro Cholula, which are considered to be part of the conurbation of the city of Puebla. Cholula is located about 15 km west of the city of Puebla, at an approximate elevation of 2135 meters (about 7000 ft) above sea level. The population of Cholula de Rivadavia as of the 2005 census was 82,964 people, and the population of San Andrés Cholula was 35,206. The municipality of San Pedro Cholula has an area of 51.03 km² (19.7 sq mi) and a population of 113,436, and the municipality of San Andrés Cholula has an area of 61 km² (23.55 sq mi) and a population of 80,118. Most of the residents of the municipality of San Andrés Cholula who do not live in the city of San Andrés Cholula reside in the city of Tlaxcalancingo, which, at a population of 38,541, is actually more populous than the municipal seat. Cholula is most famous as the site of the Great Pyramid of Cholula, the largest man-made pyramid and monument by volume in the world. Information provided by Wikipedia. Click on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholula for additional information.)

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Huauchinango
Huauchinango is a city and its surrounding municipality located in the northwestern part of the state of Puebla in Mexico. The city is the eighth largest in the state, with a 2005 census population of 51,898 inhabitants. The municipality, which has an area of 160.75 km² (62.066 sq mi), had a census population of 90,846. Its largest town besides the municipal seat at Huauchinango is Tenango de las Flores, with a population of 6,936 persons. Huauchinango is in the Eastern Sierra Madre located to the north of Puebla. (Information provided by Wikipedia. Click on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huauchinango for additional information.)

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Puebla
The city of Puebla, officially Heroic Puebla de Zaragoza (nicknamed Angelópolis) is the capital and largest city of the Mexican state of Puebla. The city has a population of 1,399,519 (the municipality, 1,485,941). The metropolitan area of the city, however, extends over 10 municipalities of the state of Puebla, such as the city of Cholula and 13 of the state of Tlaxcala, and with a population of 2,109,049 it is fourth most populous metropolitan area in Mexico and one of the largest in North America. Puebla is an important industrial, cultural and educational center of Mexico for the central and south-east regions. It is also one of the oldest colonial cities in the continent. Puebla is located in the Valley of Puebla, surrounded by volcanoes and snow-capped mountains, slightly over 110 kilometres southeast of Mexico City. The city was founded on April 16, 1531 as "La Puebla de los Ángeles." It was the first city in central Mexico founded by the Spanish conquerors that was not built upon the ruins of a conquered Amerindian settlement. Its strategic location, half-way between the port of Veracruz and Mexico City, made it the second most important city during the colonial period. During the 17th century, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz lived in the city until her confrontation with the Bishop of Puebla. Four decades after Mexico's independence, General Ignacio Zaragoza's army defeated French expeditionary forces near Puebla on May 5, 1862 in the Battle of Puebla. During the French intervention, the people of Puebla sided with the French and did not lend the needed support to the Mexican troops. This lead Ignacio Zaragoza to write a letter back to Mexico City after the defeat of the French with the help of the Tlaxcaltecans petitioning to burn the city down. Instead, the name was changes to "Heroica Puebla de Zaragoza" as punishment against the very religious city. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries a number of European immigrants came to the city, mainly from Germany, Italy and Spain. Today, the Colonia Humboldt neighborhood shows the influence of the local German population in its architecture, traditions and festivals like the local Oktoberfest, as well as in the town of Chipilo, now absorbed by the metropolitan area of the city, where people speak a dialect of Venetian known as the Chipilo Venetian dialect. The folkloric Mexican women's dress known as China Poblana was created in Puebla. Also, the "Talavera Poblana" is a fine earthenware of colonial origin still made in the city. It's a motif unique to Puebla; dineware, plant pots, churches and even streets may be lined with tiles of Talavera. (Information provided by Wikipedia. Click on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puebla,_Puebla for additional information.)

Getting To Puebla
Puebla is served by Hermanos Serdán International Airport, which is part of the metropolitan airport group for the Mexican capital and an alternate airport for Mexico City. It provides domestic services and flights to the United States. The airport is going under a construction phase to build a new terminal which would be capable of handling many international flights. The airport is also used as a place to manufacture goods and export and import due to prime location.

Things to See and Do

The historic center of the city still contains much Spanish Colonial architecture and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Many of the old buildings were severely damaged in the 1999 earthquake. In recent years some of the historical buildings have been restored while others are in a state of disrepair. Of all the colonial buildings, the most impressive are the Puebla Cathedral, built in a mixed neoclassical style; the gold-covered Capilla del Rosario (Rosary Chapel), in the nearby Iglesia de Santo Domingo, is a dramatic example of Mexican baroque, being a chapel inlaid with gold. Other important landmarks are El Barrio del Artista ("The Artist's Neighborhood") where local arts are produced and the Centro y Zócalo (downtown) where the Cathedral of Puebla and the Palacio Municipal are located. Puebla is also the home of an Automobile Museum, containing a collection of rare and classic vintage cars. This collection also includes the "Popemobile" used by John Paul II on one of his visits to Mexico. The Museo Nacional de los Ferrocarriles Mexicanos (National Museum of Mexican Railroads), located in the old Mexicano station, houses a collection of many unique train specimens, including steam engines, passenger coaches, cabooses and diesel engines. Most notably it has a pair of PA1 diesel engines, the last specimens of their kind, with one of them still in working condition (the DH-19).

Puebla Cathedral

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Tulcingo De Valle

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San Martín Texmelucan de Labastida

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Tehuacán
Tehuacán is nestled in the Southeast Valley of Tehuacán, bordering the states of Oaxaca and Veracruz. The 2005 census reported a population of 238,229 in the city and 260,923 in its surrounding municipality of the same name, of which it serves as municipal seat. The municipality has an area of 390.36 km² (150.72 sq mi). 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 twentieth 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. In the nineties, Tehuacán saw a flood of textile maquiladoras set up shop in the city and surrounding areas. These textile maquiladoras principally put together blue jeans for export. At the height of the maquila (short for maquiladora) boom, there were about 700 maquilas in town. While this situation created a negative unemployment (zero unemployment) and the maquilas sought workers as far away as Orizaba 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. When the maquilas left in the late nineties, a severe unemployment crisis ensued, which is still being felt today. (Information provided by Wikipedia. Click on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehuac%C3%A1n for additional information.)

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Teziutlán
Teziutlán is a small city in the northeast. Its 2005 census population was 60,597. It also serves as the municipal seat for the surrounding municipality of the same name. The municipality has an area of 84.2 km² (32.51 sq mi) and a population of 88,970. Teziutlán is located  close to the border with Veracruz, in the Sierra Madre Oriental. The area is drained by the Río El Calvario, Río Xóloatl and Río Xoloco rivers. Teziutlán is described in some guidebooks as a "picturesque colonial town". It was founded on 15 March 1552 at a location known to the locals as "Teziuhyotepetzintlan." The name Teziutlán is Nahuatl, and means "place near the hailstones." (Information provided by Wikipedia. Click on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puebla for additional information.)

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