Singuilucan is a town and one of the 84 municipalities of Hidalgo

Municipalities of Hidalgo

The Mexican state of Hidalgois made up of 84 municipalities :...

, in central-eastern Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

. The municipality covers an area of 334.1 km². As of 2005, the municipality had a total population of 13,143.

The name of Singuilucan has been erroneously given as "lugar de lodo o de mucho lodo" (place of silt or too much mud), which in Nahuatl

Nahuan languages

The Nahuan or Aztecan languages are those languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family that have undergone the sound change known as Whorf's Law changing the original /*t/ to before */a/...

 would be Zoquilocan. But the pre-Columbian glyph for this town clearly shows a hill with quelite

Quelite

Quelite can mean any of a number of different plants eaten in Mexico for their leaves, as leaf vegetables or herbs, including but not limited to:* Amaranthus species* Chenopodium species* Coriandrum speciesSee also:...

s (quilitl means green herbs, tzintli in Nahuatl) growing at its base. It also shows a blade of a knife, alluding to the obsidian

Obsidian use in Mesoamerica

Obsidian is a naturally formed volcanic glass that was an important part of the material culture of Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. Obsidian was a highly integrated part of daily and ritual life, and its widespread and varied use may be a significant contributor to Mesoamerica's lack of metallurgy...

 blade industry of Teotihuacan

Teotihuacan

Teotihuacan – also written Teotihuacán, with a Spanish orthographic accent on the last syllable – is an enormous archaeological site in the Basin of Mexico, just 30 miles northeast of Mexico City, containing some of the largest pyramidal structures built in the pre-Columbian Americas...

, which was based in this area, as well as there is nearby "El Cerro de las Navajas" ("hill of the knives").

So the correct translation of Singuilucan is tzinquilocan, "the place at the base of the mountain of quelites".