Ixtlahuacán del Rio is a town and municipality in the center of the Mexican state

States of Mexico

The United Mexican States is a federal republic formed by 32 federal entities .According to the Constitution of 1917, the states of the federation are free and sovereign. Each state has their own congress and constitution, while the Federal District has only limited autonomy with a local Congress...

 of Jalisco

Jalisco

Jalisco officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Jalisco is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is located in Western Mexico and divided in 125 municipalities and its capital city is Guadalajara.It is one of the more important states...

, a little less than 50 kilometers from state capital Guadalajara

Guadalajara, Jalisco

Guadalajara is the capital of the Mexican state of Jalisco, and the seat of the municipality of Guadalajara. The city is located in the central region of Jalisco in the western-pacific area of Mexico. With a population of 1,564,514 it is Mexico's second most populous municipality...

. It stands at 1,655 meters above sea level; the climate is semi-arid, with a mild winter and an average annual temperature of 19 degrees Celsius (66 degrees Fahrenheit).

Pre-Hispanic antecedents of Ixtlahuacán del Río

Ixtlahuacán is a word of Nahuatl

Nahuatl

Nahuatl is thought to mean "a good, clear sound" This language name has several spellings, among them náhuatl , Naoatl, Nauatl, Nahuatl, Nawatl. In a back formation from the name of the language, the ethnic group of Nahuatl speakers are called Nahua...

 origin; the name means "flat place". It was founded by Toltecs approximately A.D. 610

610

Year 610 was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 610 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years...

; it is hard to be certain of the exact date of founding, because none of the groups who inhabited the region — Tecuexes, Tepehuanes

Tepehuán

The Tepehuán are a Native American ethnic group in northwest Mexico, whose villages at the time of Spanish conquest spanned a large territory along the Sierra Madre Occidental from Chihuahua and Durango in the north to Jalisco in the south...

, Coanes, Cazcanos, and Zacatecos — had a written language in this period.