Nuevo San Juan Parangaricutiro or Parangaricutirimícuaro is a small

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred ...

in the Mexican state of Michoacán near the

Parícutin Parícutin (or Volcán de Parícutin, also accented Paricutín) is a cinder cone volcano located in the Mexican state of Michoacán, near the city of Uruapan and about west of Mexico City. The volcano surged suddenly from the cornfield of loca ...

volcano A volcano is a rupture in the Crust (geology), crust of a Planet#Planetary-mass objects, planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and volcanic gas, gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Ear ...

. It is the

municipal seat A municipal seat or ''cabecera municipal'' is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a municipality or civil parish with other villes or towns subordinated. The term is used in Brazil, Colombia,municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

of Nuevo Parangaricutiro. The city is called ''Nuevo'' (

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

for "new") because the original San Juan Parangaricutiro was destroyed during the formation of the Parícutin volcano in 1943.Mexican
volcanoes, Parícutin from the

USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, a ...

describing the destruction of both San Juan and Parícutin. Along with the village of Parícutin, San Juan Parangaricutiro was buried beneath ash and

lava Lava is molten or partially molten rock (magma) that has been expelled from the interior of a terrestrial planet (such as Earth) or a moon onto its surface. Lava may be erupted at a volcano or through a fracture in the crust, on land or un ...

. The top of the

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * C ...

of old San Juan Parangaricutiro still protrudes from the volcanic deposits. Nuevo San Juan Parangaricutiro is about

west West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

Uruapan Uruapan is the second largest city in the Mexican state of Michoacán. It is located at the western edge of the Purépecha highlands, just to the east of the Tierra Caliente region. Since the colonial period, it has been an important city economic ...

and

east East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fac ...

of the peak of Parícutin in central Michoacán. The village’s

postal code A postal code (also known locally in various English-speaking countries throughout the world as a postcode, post code, PIN or ZIP Code) is a series of letters or digits or both, sometimes including spaces or punctuation, included in a postal a ...

is 60490. Like many places in

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

, it is locally known by several unofficial names: "San Juan", "Nuevo San Juan", and "Parangaricutiro" are all variations. San Juan Parangaricutiro is also famously known as Parangaricutirimícuaro, the longest

toponym Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of '' toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...

in Mexico. Some believe that the name is an

urban legend An urban legend (sometimes contemporary legend, modern legend, urban myth, or urban tale) is a genre of folklore comprising stories or fallacious claims circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or a family m ...

and does not

exist eXist-db (or eXist for short) is an open source software project for NoSQL databases built on XML technology. It is classified as both a NoSQL document-oriented database system and a native XML database (and it provides support for XML, JSON, ...

. It is the object of the folklore of many fictitious fables. The word itself is a

tongue-twister A tongue twister is a phrase that is designed to be difficult to articulate properly, and can be used as a type of spoken (or sung) word game. Additionally, they can be used as exercises to improve pronunciation and fluency. Some tongue twisters p ...

and is also used in longer tongue-twisters that include nonsense words similar to Parangaricutirimícuaro, for example: ''"El pueblo de Parangaricutirimícuaro se va a desparangaricutirimicuarizar. Quien logre desparangaricutirimicuarizarlo primero será un gran desparangaricutirimicuarizador."''

Community forest

Nuevo San Juan is home to the Purépecha indigenous group which maintains communal lands covering 18,138 hectares (44,820 acres), including around 12,000 hectares (30,000 acres) of

temperate forest A temperate forest is a forest found between the tropical and boreal regions, located in the temperate zone. It is the second largest biome on our planet, covering 25% of the world's forest area, only behind the boreal forest, which covers abou ...

. In the 1970s, the group took control of the forest enterprises and by 1997 the community obtained their forest management certification from the

Forest Stewardship Council The Forest Stewardship Council A. C. (FSC) is an international non-profit, multistakeholder organization established in 1993 that promotes responsible management of the world's forests via timber certification. It is an example of a market-ba ...

. In 2004, the community won the Equator Initiative prize, part of the

United Nations Development Programme The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)french: Programme des Nations unies pour le développement, PNUD is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human dev ...

, which recognizes outstanding indigenous community efforts to reduce poverty through the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. Annually, they produce around 65,000 cubic meters (2.3 million cubic feet) of timber and offer a range of products including resins, construction lumber, finish lumber, pallets, fibers for paper pulp, furniture, and cabins.

References

External links

Pronunciation of Parangaricutiro
{{Authority control Populated places in Michoacán Destroyed cities 1943 establishments in Mexico