Huamantla (Spanish: [waˈmantla] ⓘ) is a small city in the municipality of the same name in the eastern half of the Mexican state of Tlaxcala.

This includes a month of festivities, the best known of which are the “night no one sleeps” when residents create six km of “carpets” on the streets made from colored sawdust, flowers and other materials.

[3] The main entrance to the city is marked by the Monumento al Toro (Bull Monument), a bronze sculpture by architect Diódoro Rodríguez Anaya.

[1] The city is centered on its main plaza, called Parque Juárez (Juarez Park), which contains gardens and a kiosk from the beginning of the 20th century.

[3][4] The blocks around it conserve many historic buildings from the colonial period up through the Porfirio Diáz era, with simple facades and iron-railed balconies.

[4] The San Luis Obispo Parish church is built of light stone, with a contrasting dark grey main portal.

[3][4] Modern Mexican puppetry is traced to Huamantla, especially to the Rosete Aranda family which began their traveling puppet show in 1850, which lasted over a century.

Today, the city is home to the Rosete Aranda National Puppet Museum, the only one of its kind in Latin America, located in a former mansion facing the main square.

The museum opened in 1981 after remodeling and today it hosts a collection of event posters from the 20th century, models of various bullrings in Mexico, matador outfits and photographs.

There are two main events during the months, creation of “carpets” from colored sawdust, flowers and other materials and a running of the bulls called the Huamantlada.

[1] Typical foods include mixiotes, barbacoa, mole with turkey, Tocatlán style chicken along with crystallized fruit and a dessert item called “muégano.”[3] The city of Huamantla is the local governing authorities for surrounding communities, creating a municipality with a territory of 340.33 km2.

This entity borders municipalities of Terrenate, Altzayanca, Ixtenco, Cuapiaxtla, Xaloztoc, San José Teacalco, Tetlanohcan, Tocatlán and Tzompantepec.

Wildlife is mostly found outside the urban area and includes rabbits (Silvilagus floridanus), hares (Lepus californicus), birds and reptiles.

The next regional center of power was in a settlement which is now an archeological site called Los Cerritos de Natividad, east of Huamantla, whose influence extended over fourteen communities.

The following Tezoquipan era is considered to be the cultural and technological apex of the region reflected by its water system, architecture and trade connections.

This was a Chichimeca political union that formed around 1100 CE, pushed out the Olmeca-Xilcalancas and divided the territory into four interdependent dominions.

Permission was granted in 1535, but Antonio de Mendoza ignored the royal seal and assigned lands here to Alonso Muñoz Camargo, Francisco Luca García, Eugenio Leal Chocolatzin, Diego Guevara and Juan de Aquino in the center of the new town as founders and outlying lands to forty other families between 1539 and 1543.

[1][15] Huamantla quickly became the regional center for eastern Tlaxcala with an agricultural economy that converted the valley from forest to farmland by the end of the 16th century producing corn, wheat, sheep and more.

This was opposed by the Franciscans and caused instability as the regular priests did not speak Otomi and did not comply with promises to protect the indigenous against Spanish abuses.

[15] In 1810, most of the indigenous population of the state supported the movement of Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, but as the territory was surrounded by royalist Puebla, attempts to participate in the Mexican War of Independence were stifled.

Efforts to keep Tlaxcala an independent state were led by the parish priest of Huamantla, Miguel Valentín, which eventually prevailed due to opposition to the empire model and in favor of a federal republic.

Haciendas grew in number, size and power into the early 20th century, even takingover lands which had previously been communal and unilaterally restricting water supply to the city.

[17] At the first sign of rebellion during the Mexican Revolution, the Porfirian governor of Tlaxcala dispatched troops to Huamantla and other places and was able to suppress early efforts such as that by Juan Cuamatzi, who was executed on February 26, 1911.

Later, the San Diego del Pinar Hacienda in the municipality was attacked by Zapatistas in 1913 and then later the same year by rebels fleeing the federal army.

In the 1940s, the first modern factories were built, making powdered milk and cream, cookies pork cold cuts, fertilizer and mole.

[11] In 2007, the city was named a “Pueblo Mágico” by the Mexican government's tourism secretariat, in part because of its celebrations to the Virgin of Charity and the Huamantlada in August.

[22] Traditional crafts include amate paper, mostly done by the Otomis, along with pottery, textiles, masks and dolls make from dried corn husks.

[23] The city is the starting point for a tourist route called “Huamantla and the East.”[1] The municipality has 153.1 km of highways mostly secondary and rural roads.

College level institutions include the Universidad Tecnológical del Tlaxcala and the Instituto Franciscano de Oriente.

[25] There is also a campus of the Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla which provides high school and college level education.