Mexico · Estado de Michoacán de Ocampo
Where to Stay in Apatzingán, Estado de Michoacán de Ocampo
Apatzingán de la Constitución sits in the Tierra Caliente of Michoacán, where Morelos signed Mexico's first constitution in 1814.
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Where to stay in Apatzingán
Where the beds are, and what that means for the visit.
Two beds, two very different days. Avenida Constitución runs the length of the centro histórico, and a room on it puts the Plaza de los Constituyentes, the Catedral de la Asunción, the Palacio Municipal, and the Casa de la Constitución inside one walk. The Plaza Moleros, which everybody calls Las Piedritas, sits a couple of blocks off the same line.
Take the centre for the Casa de la Constitución or for the fair that fills these streets in October, when the desfile marches and nothing parks nearby. North of the grid the Unidad Deportiva Adolfo López Mateos spreads its pitches, its olympic pool, and the auditorium named for the basketball player Luis Martínez. Rooms out along that road trade fair-week noise for parking, and the Limoneros de Apatzingán play their third-division football at the same ground.
Higher up sits Acahuato de Santiago. The pine sierra puts it twenty minutes above the valley, with a mirador over the valle de Apatzingán and, every February, the pilgrimage to the Virgen de la Candelaria. Nights are cooler there, and a bed in Acahuato de Santiago suits the Candelaria crowds or anyone who would rather not sleep in the Tierra Caliente heat, though every errand means the drive back down.
Find hotels in Apatzingán
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Avenida Constitución and the centro histórico
Avenida Constitución carries the centro histórico of Apatzingán, and the Plaza de los Constituyentes, the Palacio Municipal with its explanada, the Casa de la Constitución, and the Plaza Moleros that everybody calls Las Piedritas all stand within a few blocks of it.Find hotels in Avenida Constitución and the centro históricoParking on the north side, and the Limoneros de Apatzingán playing at the Unidad DeportivaAround the Unidad Deportiva Adolfo López Mateos
The Unidad Deportiva Adolfo López Mateos takes up the northern side of Apatzingán with its pitches, an olympic pool, a tartan athletics track, and the auditorium named for the basketball player Luis Martínez, so rooms on that road sit clear of the October desfile.Find hotels in Around the Unidad Deportiva Adolfo López MateosThe Virgen de la Candelaria pilgrimage in February and the mirador over the valle de ApatzingánAcahuato de Santiago
Acahuato de Santiago stands twenty minutes up the pine sierra from Apatzingán, a village whose mirador overlooks the valle de Apatzingán and whose Virgen de la Candelaria draws pilgrims each February. Few places to stay nearby — book ahead.Find hotels in Acahuato de SantiagoHotel links are affiliate links: booking through them may earn us a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never affects how places are ranked. How this works
About Apatzingán
One document renamed the town.
What is Apatzingán known for?
José María Morelos y Pavón and the insurgent congress signed the Constitución de Apatzingán here in 1814, the first constitution of Mexico, and the city has carried de la Constitución ever since. Tierra Caliente music is the other signature, built on the arpa grande, the valonas, and the sones the local conjuntos play. Kitchens run to chavindecas, caldo de iguana, and the aporreadillo made from dried beef.
Workshops turn parota wood and deer hide into equipales. The Cuerudos ride in leather at civic parades.
What are the main landmarks in Apatzingán?
One house explains the name. Morelos and the insurgent congress signed the Constitución de Apatzingán inside the Casa de la Constitución in 1814, and the building keeps paintings, engravings, flags, and manuscripts. The fortín de Morelos and the Palacio Municipal stand close by.
The Catedral de la Asunción rose in 1953 in a modernist idiom, and the diócesis de Apatzingán is seated in the city. Two collections remain, the Museo de la Tierra Caliente and the Casa de la Cultura, and the mirador Las Graditas looks back over the roofs.
What is the history of Apatzingán?
Before the friars, a temple. The name Apahtzïngan is purépecha and reads as the place where the temple of Apahtzï stands, Apahtzï being the weasel taken for the god of death, and the cazonci of the Imperio purépecha is said to have garrisoned miuchhuaques warriors at this frontier against the mexicas. Prisoners went to the sacrificial stone, their skulls to a náhuatl tzompantli.
The Relación de Xochitlan records Cutzamala under the same tarascan name, glossed as the place of weasels. Cecilio Robelo read it differently, from apantzintl, as the place of little reeds, while Peñafiel kept to the weasel. Franciscan and Augustinian monks founded the settlement in 1617, and it stayed a pueblo until 1883, when the rank of city was granted.
The middle of that span decided everything else. José María Morelos y Pavón and the insurgent congress promulgated the Constitución de Apatzingán on 22 October 1814, in the war against the Spanish Empire that broke the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and the city took the document into its own name. Later the Defensas Rurales of the Tierra Caliente hardened into the Cuerudos, riders in deer-hide suits who fought in the Revolución mexicana and were folded afterwards into the Ejército Mexicano as a rural cavalry corps.
Where is Apatzingán?
Lime orchards run to the edge of town. The city sits on the floor of the Tierra Caliente, where papaya, toronja, and mango come off the same ground and the lime plant known as PIVE works the crop. Westward the land climbs.
The Sierra Madre del Sur walls that side, with the municipality of Coalcomán de Vázquez Pallares beyond it, while Nueva Italia lies out on the same lowland and Ciudad Altamirano marks the Guerrero end of the depression. Pine country rises the other way, where Acahuato de Santiago keeps a mirador over the valle de Apatzingán.
What is the climate of Apatzingán?
Evaporation, not drought, makes the dry reading here. Rain does fall on the Tierra Caliente in the summer months, yet the basin heat burns it off fast enough that Apatzingán classes as semi-arid under the Köppen BSh label. The Sierra Madre del Sur rises on the western side of the valley.
Hot and semi-dry is the year-round condition. Walking is best left to the early hours, and the balnearios and the pine air of Acahuato de Santiago exist for the same reason.
How do you get to Apatzingán?
Roads do the work. Uruapan and Morelia are the larger Michoacán cities, and the run in from either crosses into the Tierra Caliente past Nueva Italia, the neighbour that shares this valley floor. Ciudad Altamirano lies the other way, along the depression toward Guerrero. Avenida Constitución gathers the incoming streets into the centro histórico.
From there the climb to Acahuato de Santiago, up in the pine sierra, takes about twenty minutes.
Common questions
What is the best area to stay in Apatzingán?
Avenida Constitución and the centro histórico: Walking to the Plaza de los Constituyentes, the Casa de la Constitución, and the Catedral de la Asunción. Around the Unidad Deportiva Adolfo López Mateos: Parking on the north side, and the Limoneros de Apatzingán playing at the Unidad Deportiva. Acahuato de Santiago: The Virgen de la Candelaria pilgrimage in February and the mirador over the valle de Apatzingán.
More cities in Estado de Michoacán de Ocampo
Updated September 2026