River port of bold arcades
Tlacotalpan
A quiet town on the Papaloapan river where every house has a columned porch in a different strong colour.
Why Tlacotalpan is arcade blue
Tlacotalpan is a river port in the state of Veracruz, on the Gulf coast of Mexico. It prospered in the 19th century, when boats on the Papaloapan carried sugar, cotton and timber. Then the railway passed it by, and the town stayed much as it was. Its streets are wide, and the single-storey houses have covered porches with columns and arches, roofed in red tile. Each is painted in two or three strong colours: blue with white, pink with green, yellow with red. The style is more Caribbean than central Mexican. The town is known for son jarocho music and for a feast in early February. It has been a World Heritage Site since 1998.
Values are fair approximations of what the eye sees there, not measurements.
Written by the Rang desk with AI assistance. Background: "Tlacotalpan" on Wikipedia. If you know Tlacotalpan and we have it wrong, tell us.
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🇮🇳 The Blue CityJodhpurOld-city houses washed in blue crowd the foot of Mehrangarh Fort, on the edge of the Thar Desert.Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Jodhpur In: Lavpatel2008, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Izamal Mx: Inri, CC0, source
- Guanajuato Mx: Nathaniel C. Sheetz, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Oaxaca Mx: Apsu09, CC BY 3.0, source
- San Miguel De Allende Mx: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jiuguangw/, CC BY-SA 2.0, source
- Campeche Mx: self., CC BY-SA 4.0, source