Tzopilopan
Tzopilopan
𐐓𐑆𐐬𐐹𐐨𐑊𐐬𐐹𐐰𐑌 | |
|---|---|
   Clockwise from top: Cityscape of the northern districts, Metallurgist Monument, Teocitlali Tower | |
| Country | Zacapican |
| Republic | Xallipan |
| Atlepetl | Tzopilopan |
| Established | 1291 |
| Districts | 9
|
| Area | |
| • Total | 151 km2 (58 sq mi) |
| Elevation | 1,909 m (6,263 ft) |
| Population (2022 census) | |
| • Total | 1,715,296 |
| • Density | 11,360/km2 (29,400/sq mi) |
Tzopilopan (Nahuatl: 𐐓𐑆𐐬𐐹𐐨𐑊𐐬𐐹𐐰𐑌) is the capital and the largest city of the Xallipan Republic in Zacapican. With a population of 1.7 million people, Tzopilopan is the 7th largest city in Zacapican. It is the center of the Altepetlacatla Tzopilopan Tlatzalan or "Tzopilopan Valley Metropolitan Area", a special administrative region encompassing the urbanized corridor between the Coatlantli spur of the Mixtepemec mountains which extends along a north-south axis to the south and west of the city and the Yoliliz river which flows from to the east of the city. The Tzopilopan Valley Metropolitan Area accounts for half of the population of the arid and mountainous landscape of Xallipan and includes the outlying municipalities of Texacalli, Itztepec and Ilhuicatlitic. In contrast to the surrounding region with its rural economy relying on extraction and subsistence farming, Tzopilopan follows the trend of most Zacapine cities in hosting a significant manufacturing base mainly geared towards products derived from the Xallipan mining industry including copper, zinc, and lithium. High technology manufacturing was established in Tzopilopan when the city became home to the Zacapine space program. The city is also a popular tourist destination within Zacapican, due in large part to its pleasant weather and moderate winters which attract holiday visitors hailing from the western and southern cities of the country which often suffer brutal winter storms. This has propelled the city into the forefront of the developing Zacapine service sector.
History
Although the valley has been a highly desirable and continuously inhabited part of the central Oxidentale desert for thousands of years, the city of Tzopilopan itself was established in the 13th century as a small military outpost during the Meco Wars. This small fortification was established by an Aztapaman general known as Coyoltecatl of Zacaco, credited with officially establishment the settlement in the center of the valley. Coyoltecatl's small temporary fort, built from wood and abode with cane roofing, served to garrison his expeditionary force composed mainly of auxiliaries recruited from lower Meco tribes in the decades long Aztapaman effort to conquer the 500 kilometer long valley stretching across all of northeastern Zacapican. However, the fortifications there would soon be turned into permanent buildings made of stone and concrete with ceramic roofing, as the location of Coyoltecatl's foundation proved to be of great strategic value in the ongoing war to pacify the northern Meco. The nascent Tzopilopan sat atop a small hill on the floor of the valley, commanding the surrounding lowlands, and was not far from the course of the Yoliliz from which water could be obtained. In the ancient Nahua conception, a hill and a water source were all that was needed to establish a city, with the word for city itself (altepetl) being a compound of atl (water) and tepetl (hill or mountain).
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Tzopilopan remained a relatively small frontier settlement of a few thousand inhabitants for much of its early history. It was isolated from much of the rest of Aztapaman territory and constantly at risk of raiding by the desert and mountain tribes that continued to resist the rule of the Heron for centuries after the conquest in a low level insurgency. The Walled City, today Achto district, grew to a size of 50,000 citizens at its zenith in the 18th century before stabilizing around that number. Nevertheless, the Tzopilopan valley was highly desirable in the region thanks to its wetter, warmer climate, seeing many settlements form in a cluster around the fortifications of Tzopilopan. It was at times difficult to tell what settlement was an outgrowth of the walled city and what was a separate community founded elsewhere on the valley floor. The valley served as the center of operations for Aztapaman forces across the whole north of their territory stretching as far as modern day Yadokawona. Administrators in Tzopilopan ruled the northern provinces of the empire almost as an autonomous vassal state, as most tribes, auxiliaries and functionaries had far greater loyalty and connection to Tzopilopan than distant Angatahuaca. The Angatahuacan authorities were aware of this, and frequently shuffled bureaucrats, religious officials and governors in and out of the Tzopilopan and the north in order to maintain at least a nominal control over the region. Nevertheless, the north would rise up against Angatahuaca during the Zacapine Revolution under the leadership of Canneo Nima, a Tlatoque of Tzopilopan and highly popular local figure who would die in battle in 1908.
Tzopilopan along with its role in the area would be transformed by the Xolotecate era and the wave of industrialization which swept the entire country. Although Tzopilopan was behind the curve compared to the more populated and prosperous regions like the Zacaco valley or Aztaco peninsula, modernity did eventually reach desolate Xallipan and its high valley settlements. The Meco railway connecting Tzopilopan to the other Meco valley cities and ultimately to the ports of Temallacayo and Tlacochtecuhtli in the Xochicuahuico Republic was completed in 1916, immediately beginning to revolutionize the area. All of Xallipan experienced a mining boom, bringing many from the lower Meco and other areas into Xallipan. Tzopilopan became a boomtown through much of the 1920s as a result of the flow of people into the region, many of whom settled in the city after having their hopes dashed of becoming wealthy or becoming disillusioned in the hard life of the remote mining calpolli. All of this growth brought the attention of the national government, which began to invest in public services and infrastructure in the Tzopilopan valley, intervening to merge many of the outlying settlements into the municipality of Tzopilopan. This reform created the nine numbered districts of the modern city. In 1939, the Moyocoya Dam was completed, producing massive amounts of electricity and creating the all important Lake Seti which today provides most of the water supply for 8-10 months out of the year. This highly publicized and costly development enabled the further meteoric growth of Tzopilopan for decades afterward. Since the dam began operation, the population of the Tzopilopan valley has skyrocketed from 300,000 to roughly 2 million people.
Urban structure
The city of Tzopilopan has expanded rapidly within the last century, rising from 120,000 to 1,700,000 citizens within that timeframe. The expansion of Tzopilopan's physical bounds has been focused mainly in the west and south directions relative to the old Walled City, today known as Achto district. Unlike many other Zacapine cities, the old center of the city is not conducive to hosting the central hub of a modern urban metropolis due to its location on a rocky hill in the middle of the valley which has frustrated attempts to build extensive modern infrastructure in that district. Instead, Excan district to the south of the hill became the de-facto city center with much of the city's new public institutions being established there, while Ome district to the immediate west of the old city formed the city's industrial nucleus. This development has broadly served as the blueprint for all subsequent development in the city. Industrial plants and worker villages have been built in the western extension of the city while museums, the university campus, office complexes as well as the resorts, hotels and restaurants associated with the tourism industry have been built further and further to the south. This has given the city a physical shape on the map reminiscent of the Heron letter 𐐑. Ome, Macuilli, Chicuace, and Chicontetl districts are found in the western arm of the city, while Excan, Nahui, Chicuei, and Chiconauhtetl form the southern arm. Achto, now somewhat isolated and out of the way from the rest of the city, remains the formal seat of the city government with the old municipal buildings and temples there serving as the icons of old Tzopilopan. The hilltop wards are also the abode of the city's well-off citizens and old lineages that far predate the meteoric rise of the city to national prominence.
Economy
The core of the modern Tzopilopan economy is the manufacturing of various metals and metal products. In the early Xolotecate, the development of the copper mining industry in Xallipan saw many narrow gauge mountain trains loaded with copper ores rolling into Tzopilopan to transfer onto the wider gauge Meco railway for export. This presented an opportunity for development in Tzopilopan, where the ore could be processed into refined copper metal which would also reduce the weight and volume of material to be shipped elsewhere by rail. A major copper conductor and wire manufacturing calpolli, today dominating the Ome district, was built up between 1918 and 1920. The success of the early copper wire factories set off a chain reaction through the ballooning Tzopilopan population, many of whom were unemployed or underemployed at the time, to flock to any new calpolli factory opening up. Low labor costs and easy access to copper, zinc and tin enabled these specialty metal products factories to become highly successful, exporting their products to the rapidly modernizing cities all across the country. Almost all of Zacapican would ultimately be electrified using copper wires manufactured in Tzopilopan. Production of glass is present in the city, taking the form of specialty glass-blowing for the production of custom glass components needed in many industries. Some consumer electronics manufacturing has moved into the area as a result of the resource availability and proximity to these important metal products calpolli. Tzopilopan is home to several manufacturing plants producing refrigeration equipment and air conditioners using imported plastic and aluminum along with locally produced steel casing and copper wiring and tubing. Tzopilopan University, the centralized post-secondary institute of the altepetl, offers several specialized vocational courses tailored the local industries, such as glass blowing and HVAC manufacturing.
Although it is seen as a relatively modern development, the growth of the tourism industry in Tzopilopan dates back to the 1940s when the Xallipan region and the picturesque towns of the Tzopilopan valley in particular became popular destinations for Zacapine citizens from the cities of the Zacaco and Aztaco on their winter holidays from mid June to mid August. This was due in part to the national attention brought to the city thanks to the construction of the Moyocoya Dam, the greatest public project of the era which promised to revolutionize agriculture and industry in the arid region. The result was the establishment of some of Zacapican's oldest tourist service calpolli, with entire worker communities forming around hotel services, restaurants, and guided tours. These service calpolli gain a significant amount of revenue during the winter season, far in excess of operating costs, providing a cash reserve for the service worker communities to coast through the off season despite much less demand for their services in those months. Efforts have been made over the years to attract international visitors from the northern hemisphere, which come primarily in the summer months of the southern hemisphere (December, January and February) to find refuge from cold weather in their parts of the world. This has been met with limited success, allowing many of the resorts and hotels to gain an income stream during the domestic off season and better sustain themselves through the summer, although domestic visitors from the rest of Zacapican remain the main source of tourist income for the city's service sector.
Transportation
Tzopilopan has served as a transit hub for the entire Xallipan plateau for centuries. Since the time of the Meco Wars, all the Aztapaman roads of the region have emanated outward from Tzopilopan, and the subsequent development of narrow gauge railway snaking its way through the mountains and deserts has followed this pattern, often tracing the routes of the old Aztapaman roads. Today, Tzopilopan serves as the hub from which the spokes of the Xallipan road and rail network extend, and the primary connection for these provincial railways and state roads to interlink with the long distance national networks of standard gauge railway and the national highway system. Due to the development of industry in that area, much of the modern road and rail infrastructure approaches west of the city. All of the major rail yards are located in or near the western industrial districts of Tzopilopan. The city-wide elevated track system carries the urban rapid transit network, which consists of four lines in total. The red line forms the axis connecting the western and southern sections of the city. The green and yellow lines are spurs off of the red line which extend to its east and west through the southern arm of the city, helping to improve transit connections through that part of the city, while the blue line spur extends from the western portion of the red line axis through parts of the western arm and features an extension linking to the airport. Much of the ground transportation network within the city, however, relies on the Azcatl electric busses common throughout most of the country. This type of electric bus relies on overhead power lines instead of lithium ion batteries as the electric vehicles of northern Oxidentale do, making them much cheaper to manufacture and capable of traveling longer along the cable network without having to stop to recharge. Azcatl bus lines serve as the mainstay for short to mid range transportation needs across the entire city, and are the only component of the city's transportation system connecting to the hilltop Achto district wards that aren't served by the rapid transit system or any of the major avenues.
The city is served by Canneo Nima International Airport, located to the southwest of the city roughly equidistant from its southern and western arms. CNIA has two runways which were both recently extended and improved to accommodate large modern passenger jets. The airport is an important transport linkage in the city's infrastructural network as the majority of tourists from Zacapican and abroad arrive by air rather than rail or by car, thanks in part to the long distance and sparse land connections due to the difficult terrain of the Xallipan plateau. In terms of passenger volume, CNIA is the fourth busiest airport in Zacapican, doubling as a layover airport for transcontinental flights destined for Kayahallpa, the Mutul and Sante Reze. It is also the only airport in Zacapican which has connecting flights to Yadokan airports, with Tzopilopan serving as the main gateway from Zacapican to its small northern neighbor.
Climate
The Tzopilopan valley represents in isolated pocket of subtropical highland climate in the primarily arid Xallipan plateau , making it a highly desirable region of the arid north characterized by year-round pleasant weather. The valley contrasts against the cold climate of the surrounding tlalceceya highlands which make up much of southern and western Xallipan, with the geography of the valley creating a warm, humid microclimate at the foot of the Coatlantli sierra. Although the extreme fluctuations in temperature and rainfall of the surrounding plateau are mitigated somewhat by the geography of the valley, Tzopilopan is nevertheless subject to the wet summers and extreme dryness of the winters as well as the temperamental seasonal flooding of the Yoliliz and its tributaries although this latter factor is mostly controlled by the Moyocoya Dam.
| Climate data for Tzopilopan, Xallipan Republic (Canneo Nima International Airport) | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Record high °C (°F) | 36.4 (97.5) |
35.1 (95.2) |
34.0 (93.2) |
34.3 (93.7) |
34.2 (93.6) |
34.6 (94.3) |
37.2 (99.0) |
37.8 (100.0) |
37.8 (100.0) |
39.3 (102.7) |
39.9 (103.8) |
38.7 (101.7) |
39.9 (103.8) |
| Average high °C (°F) | 27.7 (81.9) |
26.5 (79.7) |
25.1 (77.2) |
22.9 (73.2) |
20.3 (68.5) |
19.8 (67.6) |
19.9 (67.8) |
22.7 (72.9) |
24.7 (76.5) |
26.9 (80.4) |
27.6 (81.7) |
28.4 (83.1) |
24.4 (75.9) |
| Daily mean °C (°F) | 21.5 (70.7) |
20.6 (69.1) |
19.4 (66.9) |
16.8 (62.2) |
13.3 (55.9) |
10.9 (51.6) |
10.1 (50.2) |
12.8 (55.0) |
15.8 (60.4) |
19.3 (66.7) |
20.6 (69.1) |
21.7 (71.1) |
16.9 (62.4) |
| Average low °C (°F) | 16.8 (62.2) |
16.1 (61.0) |
15.2 (59.4) |
12.2 (54.0) |
8.1 (46.6) |
4.5 (40.1) |
2.9 (37.2) |
4.8 (40.6) |
7.7 (45.9) |
12.1 (53.8) |
14.2 (57.6) |
16.0 (60.8) |
10.9 (51.6) |
| Record low °C (°F) | 6.1 (43.0) |
4.8 (40.6) |
2.2 (36.0) |
−1.5 (29.3) |
−4.6 (23.7) |
−7.5 (18.5) |
−8.7 (16.3) |
−9.4 (15.1) |
−4.5 (23.9) |
−1.3 (29.7) |
1.5 (34.7) |
6.2 (43.2) |
−9.4 (15.1) |
| Average precipitation mm (inches) | 197.1 (7.76) |
147.3 (5.80) |
107.3 (4.22) |
42.1 (1.66) |
9.7 (0.38) |
2.5 (0.10) |
2.7 (0.11) |
2.3 (0.09) |
5.7 (0.22) |
23.9 (0.94) |
59.3 (2.33) |
138.4 (5.45) |
738.3 (29.07) |
| Average precipitation days (≥ 1.0 mm) | 12.4 | 11.2 | 10.1 | 4.4 | 1.7 | 0.5 | 0.8 | 0.7 | 1.2 | 3.3 | 6.6 | 10.1 | 63.0 |
| Average relative humidity (%) | 77.2 | 80.6 | 82.9 | 82.3 | 80.5 | 75.6 | 69.3 | 60.4 | 55.8 | 60.6 | 66.1 | 71.5 | 71.9 |
| Mean monthly sunshine hours | 182.3 | 156.7 | 141.2 | 141.6 | 147.9 | 162.6 | 196.0 | 205.7 | 198.7 | 202.0 | 198.0 | 196.7 | 2,128.7 |
| Percent possible sunshine | 39 | 37 | 28 | 33 | 40 | 37 | 52 | 56 | 45 | 47 | 43 | 39 | 41 |
| Source: Tzopilopan University | |||||||||||||