Melchor Ocampo is a town and

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 ...

State of Mexico The State of Mexico ( es, Estado de México; ), officially just Mexico ( es, México), is one of the 32 federal entities of the United Mexican States. Commonly known as Edomex (from ) to distinguish it from the name of the whole country, it is ...

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 ...

. The municipality covers an area of 32.48 km². As of 2005, the municipality had a total population of 37,706.

Name

From its founding until 1894, the municipality was known as Tlacomulco and then San Miguel Tlaxomulco; the latter portion comes from the Nahuatl words ''tlalli'' (earth); ''xomolli'' (corner or small place) and ''co'' of ''coztic'' (in), that is to say, "In some corner of the earth" or "a little corner of ground". In 1894, the legislature of the State of Mexico decreed that the place would be called "Ocampo". Currently it is known as Melchor Ocampo in honor of the deceased reformist politician and philosopher of that name. The symbol on the town flag (an "L" with the top ending in a ''fluer-de-lis'', with a rectangle leaning against its inside) is intended to represent the Náhuatl form of the town's old name.

Origin and conquest

While the general area between

Cuautitlán Cuautitlán (), is a municipality in the State of Mexico, just north of the northern tip of the Federal District (Distrito Federal) within the Greater Mexico City urban area. The city of Cuautitlán is the municipal seat and makes up most of the ...

Zumpango Zumpango is a municipality located to northeastern part of the state of Mexico in Zumpango Region. It lies directly north of the Mexico City within the Greater Mexico City urban area. The city of Zumpango lies near Lake Zumpango, the last of the f ...

and

Tepotzotlán Tepotzotlán () is a city and a municipality in the Mexican state of Mexico. It is located northeast of Mexico City about a 45-minute drive along the Mexico City- Querétaro at marker number 41. In Aztec times, the area was the center of a do ...

was probably under human influence from the

Toltec The Toltec culture () was a Pre-Columbian era, pre-Columbian Mesoamerican culture that ruled a state centered in Tula (Mesoamerican site), Tula, Hidalgo (state), Hidalgo, Mexico, during the Epiclassic and the early Post-Classic period of Mesoam ...

period at the latest, and perhaps as early as 2500 B.C., there is no record of a settlement at the exact site of the current municipality until after the

Spanish conquest The Spanish Empire ( es, link=no, Imperio español), also known as the Hispanic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Hispánica) or the Catholic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Católica) was a colonial empire governed by Spain and its predece ...

. In 1519 the area was under the ''tlatoani'' of Cuautitlán ("Guautitlan" in contemporary records). In 1521 it came under Spanish rule, when Cortez's forces "occupied it without resistance". After the conquest, the town of Cuautitlán and everything that pertained to it, including Tlaxomulco, was given as an ''encomienda'' to

Alonso de Ávila Alonso is a Spanish name of Germanic origin that is a Castilian variant of ''Adalfuns''. Geographical distribution As of 2014, 36.6% of all known bearers of the surname ''Alonso'' were residents of Spain (frequency 1:222), 26.1% of Mexico (1:83 ...

, one of Cortez's captains.

Culture

The most notable monument in the municipality is the principal church, dedicated to the Archangel Michael (''San Miguel''). It is built of black volcanic rock (''tezontle'') and has a façade in baroque style. It was built in the seventeenth century.

Population History

External links

Municipal Government webpage

References

{{Mexico State Municipalities of the State of Mexico Populated places in the State of Mexico