The city is known for the Sanctuary of the Padre Jesús de Petatlán, a 17th-century image of Christ that is claimed to have performed religious miracles.

The city is the seat of a large municipality, which faces the Pacific Ocean to the south and is bounded by the Sierra Madre del Sur to the north.

The area's recent history has been marked by violence related to the drug trade and to struggles between business and local farmers and environmental groups.

The Play begins at the sanctuary, and then proceeds along a five-kilometer path, reenacting the Stations of the Cross, on the way to a hill in the Colonia Benito Juarez neighborhood, which simulates Calvary.

[3][5] However, in 2006, there was a grenade attack during the Fexpo in which two people were killed and about 50 wounded; since then, the crowds during Holy Week and the rest of the year have been much smaller.

[6] After the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, Petatlán was part of an encomienda belonging to Ginés de Pinzón.

[6] During the Mexican War of Independence, Petatlán was made part of the Tecpan province, which was created by José María Morelos y Pavón in 1811.

Drug-related violence of the past several decades has taken its toll as tourism is down, fewer come to shop in the city and many residents stay indoors for fear of a stray bullet.

[4] The violence is not limited to the city of Petatlán; it also occurs in its small rural communities such as La Morena, El Camalote and Las Humedades.

[8] In 2010, residents of Juluchuca and other nearby communities staged a sit-in near an arroyo where their rights to extract water were revoked to allow for drilling for petroleum.

[9] The most serious conflict has been between the “campesinos” (peasant farmers) and local caciques (bosses) over logging and drug crop growing/transport in the mountain areas of the municipality and other parts of the Costa Grande of Guerrero.

[11] Local farmers depend on these resources and, in the late 1990s, banded together to form the Campesino Environmentalist Organization of Petatlan and Coyuca de Catalan (OCEP).

[10] The OCEP continues to exist and fight deforestation mostly through legal channels, although some are still accused by authorities of drug trafficking and membership in a guerrilla group.