Cholula, Puebla

Cholula
San Pedro Cholula/San Andrés Cholula
City and District
San Pedro Cholula
View of Pyramid and church
View of Pyramid and church
Cholula is located in Puebla (state)
Cholula
Cholula
Cholula is located in Mexico
Cholula
Cholula
Coordinates: 19°03′48″N 98°18′23″W / 19.06333°N 98.30639°W / 19.06333; -98.30639
Country Mexico
StatePuebla
Foundedroughly 500 BCE
Municipal Status1860s
Government
 • Municipal PresidentsJosé Juan Espinosa (San Pedro) and Leoncio Paisano (San Andrés)
Area
 • Total111.03 km2 (42.87 sq mi)
Elevation
(of seat)
2,150 m (7,050 ft)
Population
 (2005) San Pedro and San Andrés Municipalities
 • Total193,554
 • City
118,170
Time zoneUTC-6 (Central (US Central))
Postal code (of seat)
72810
Area code222
DemonymCholuteco
Website(in Spanish) San Andrés and SanPedro

Cholula (Spanish: [tʃoˈlula] , officially Cholula de Rivadavia; Mezquital Otomi: Mä'ragi),[1] is a city and district located in the metropolitan area of Puebla, Mexico.[2] Cholula is best known for its Great Pyramid, with the Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de los Remedios sanctuary on top, as well as its numerous churches.

The city and district of Cholula are divided into two: San Pedro Cholula and San Andrés Cholula. Surrounding the city proper is a number of more rural communities which belong to the municipalities of San Andrés and San Pedro. The city itself is divided into eighteen neighborhoods or barrios, each with a patron saint.

This division has pre-Hispanic origins as does the division into two municipalities. The city is unified by a complicated system of shared religious responsibilities, called cargas, which function mostly to support a very busy calendar of saints' days and other festivals which occur in one part or another almost all year round. The most important of these festivals is that dedicated to the Virgin of the Remedies, the patron of the city in its entirety, which occurs at the beginning of September. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on Earth. Pre-Columbian Cholula grew from a small village to a regional center during the 7th century. It is the oldest still-inhabited city in the Americas.

  1. ^ "Archivo histórico de localidades - Cholula de Rivadavia". National Institute of Statistics and Geography. Archived from the original on 2014-10-30.
  2. ^ "Mapa Zona metropolitana de Puebla-Tlaxcala" (PDF). National Institute of Statistics and Geography.