Oaxaca, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca, is one of the 32 states that compose the Federative Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 570 municipalities, of which 418 are governed by the system of usos y costumbres with recognized local forms of self-governance. Its capital city is Oaxaca de Juárez.
The Mixtecs, or Mixtecos, are indigenous Mesoamerican peoples of Mexico inhabiting the region known as La Mixteca of Oaxaca and Puebla as well as La Montaña Region and Costa Chica Regions of the state of Guerrero. The Mixtec culture was the main Mixtec civilization, which lasted from around 1500 BC until being conquered by the Spanish in 1523.
Cuajinicuilapa is a town in Cuajinicuilapa Municipality in the Costa Chica region of the Mexican state of Guerrero. A low-lying area, it borders the Pacific Ocean and the state of Oaxaca. The municipality has the state's largest population of Afro-Mexicans with most of the population of this ethnicity. The town and municipality are highly socioeconomically marginalized and it is the poorest municipality of the state, with the economy dependent on livestock and fishing.
Tututepec is a Mesoamerican archaeological site. It is located in the lower Río Verde valley on the coast of Oaxaca that formed the nucleus of an extensive Mixtec state during the Late Postclassic period. At its largest extent the site covered some 21.85 km2, and its political influence extended over an area of more than 25,000 km² of the neighbouring territory.
The Lagunas de Chacahuan National Park, created in 1937, is a national park located in the Municipality of ChineseVilla de Tututepec de Melchor Ocampo in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, about 54 km west of Puerto Escondido, near a village called Zapotalito. It can be reached via Federal Highway 200 or by boat from Puerto Escondido. It is located between the towns of Santiago Jamiltepec and Puerto Escondido. The park encompasses 132.73 square kilometres, about 30 km² of which is taken by various lagoons such as the ‘’’Laguna de Chacahua,’’’ ‘’’Laguna de La Pastoria,’’’ and Laguna Las Salinas. There are various smaller lagoons that are connected by narrow channels. The rest of the park consists of dry land. I cum inside the park has 10 different types of vegetation: “selva espinosa", swampland, deciduous, sub tropical broadleaf, mangroves, savannah, “bosque de galleria”, “tular”, palm trees, and coastal dunes. 246 species of flowers and 189 species of animals have been documented so far in the park. Birds such as storks, herons, wild ducks, blue-winged teals, pelicans, and spoonbills can be found here. Three species of turtles also visit the park to lay their eggs.
The Costa Chica of Guerrero is an area along the south coast of the state of Guerrero, Mexico, extending from just south of Acapulco to the Oaxaca border. Geographically, it consists of part of the Sierra Madre del Sur, a strip of rolling hills that lowers to coastal plains to the Pacific Ocean. Various rivers here form large estuaries and lagoons that host various species of commercial fish.
Cuilapan de Guerrero is a town and municipality located in the central valley region of Oaxaca in southern Mexico. It is 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) to the south of the capital city of Oaxaca on the road leading to Villa de Zaachila, and is in the Centro District in the Valles Centrales region.
Cuajinicuilapa Municipality is one of the 81 municipalities of Guerrero, in south-western Mexico. The municipal seat lies at Cuajinicuilapa. The municipality covers an area of 857.1 km². As of 2005, the municipality had a total population of 25,537.
Xochistlahuaca is a town in Xochistlahuaca Municipality located in the southeast corner of the Mexican state of Guerrero. It is part of this state's Costa Chica region and while near the Pacific Ocean, most of the territory is mountainous. The population is dominated by the indigenous Amuzgo ethnicity, whose women are noted for their traditional hand woven garments, especially the huipil, which is made both for home use and for sale outside the area.
Villa de Zaachila is a town and municipality in Oaxaca, Mexico, six km from Oaxaca City. It is part of the Zaachila District in the west of the Valles Centrales Region. In the pre-Hispanic era, it was the main city-state for the Valley of Oaxaca after the fall of Monte Albán, and the Zaachila Zapotecs were the prominent political force for much of the Valley of Oaxaca when the Spanish arrived. Since then, it has been mostly quiet, but political unrest has been prominent since 2006 and the municipality has two parallel governments.
Santa María Tonameca is a town and municipality located on the southern coast of Oaxaca, Mexico, about 268 km from the capital city of Oaxaca. It is part of the Pochutla District in the east of the Costa Region. It is a very rural area, which is best known for the beach communities of Mazunte, San Agustinillo and La Ventanilla. The National Turtle Center, a research center and aquarium is located in Mazunte, along with conservation centers for butterflies and iguanas. The town itself is the site of the largest annual festival in the area, celebrating the rescue of a cedar image of the Virgin Mary from the rubble of the town church after an earthquake on 11 May 1870.
Santos Reyes Nopala is a town and municipality in Oaxaca in south-western Mexico. It is part of the Juquila District in the center of the Costa Region. The name Nopala is derived from the Nahuatl word for nopatlan.
Tulcingo (municipality) is a town and municipality in Puebla in south-eastern Mexico.
The Cuenca del Papaloapan Region is in the north of the state of Oaxaca, Mexico where the foothills of the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca meet the coastal plain of Veracruz. The principal city is San Juan Bautista Tuxtepec, the second largest in Oaxaca state.
Juquila District is located in the center of the Costa Region of the State of Oaxaca, Mexico, on the Pacific coast. It has an area of 5,055 km2. As of 2005 it had a total population of 134,365 of whom 33,106 spoke an indigenous language. Economic activities include agriculture and tourism. The Santuario (Sanctuary) de Juquila is a major attraction.
The Indigenous people of Oaxaca are descendants of the inhabitants of what is now the state of Oaxaca, Mexico who were present before the Spanish invasion. Several cultures flourished in the ancient region of Oaxaca from as far back as 2000 BC, of whom the Zapotecs and Mixtecs were perhaps the most advanced, with complex social organization and sophisticated arts.
The internal classification of Mixtec is controversial. Many varieties are mutually unintelligible and by that criterion separate languages. In the 16th century, Spanish authorities recognized half a dozen lenguas comprising the Mixtec lengua. It is not clear to what extent these were distinct languages at the time. Regardless, the colonial disintegration of the Mixtec nation and resulting isolation of local communities led to the rapid diversification of local dialects into distinct languages. Below are some attempts at Mixtec classification by various scholars.
Regional communications in ancient Mesoamerica are believed to have been extensive. There were various trade routes attested since prehistoric times. In this article, especially the routes starting in the Mexico Central Plateau, and going down to the Pacific coast will be considered. These contacts then went on as far as Central America.
The Mexican South Pacific Coast mangroves ecoregion covers the mangrove sites along the coast of the Pacific Ocean coast of Mexico, across the states of Michoacán, Guerrero, and Oaxaca. These mangrove forests are mostly around lagoons, typically those fed by rivers from the interior in the Sierra Madre del Sur Mountains. The ecoregion is small: collectively, it covers only 1,295 km2.
The Mixtec culture was a pre-hispanic archaeological culture, corresponding to the ancestors of the Mixtec people; they called themselves ñuu Savi, which means "people or nation of the rain". It had its first manifestations in the Mesoamerican Middle Preclassic period and ended with the Spanish conquest in the first decades of the 16th century. The historical territory of this people is the area known as La Mixteca, a mountainous region located between the current Mexican states of Puebla, Oaxaca, and Guerrero.
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