Chiapas Highlands
Chiapas Highlands | |
---|---|
Central Highlands of Chiapas Chiapas Plateau | |
Highest point | |
Elevation | 2,880 m (9,450 ft) |
Coordinates | 16°43′00″N 92°37′00″W / 16.7167°N 92.6167°W |
Naming | |
Native name | Los Altos de Chiapas (Spanish) |
Geography | |
Country | Mexico |
State | Chiapas |
The Chiapas Highlands, also known as the Central Highlands of Chiapas or Chiapas Plateau (Spanish: Los Altos de Chiapas), is a geographic, sociocultural and administrative region located in Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico.
Geography
The Chiapas Highlands are in the central part of the state of Chiapas. They are part of the Central American highlands, which run from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Mexico to central Nicaragua.[1] The Chiapas Highlands comprise a limestone mass with extrusive volcanic rocks at the highest peaks, covering over 11,000 km2. They extend 160 km along a northwest–southeast axis, and 70 km at the widest.[2] The elevation varies from 300 to 2,898 meters above the sea level.[3]
The northern and eastern slopes of the Central Highlands are drained by the
The Chiapas Depression separates the Central Highlands from the Sierra Madre de Chiapas, which runs east and west through the southern part of Chiapas and extending west into Oaxaca and eastwards into Guatemala and El Salvador. The Sierra Madre de Chiapas forms the divide between the basins of the Grijalva and Usumacinta rivers and those that drain southwards into the Pacific Ocean.[1]
San Cristóbal de las Casas is the largest city in the highlands. Other towns include Comitán and Ocosingo.
Climate
Flora and fauna
The higher elevations are covered by
Lower-elevation forests include areas of tropical evergreen forest, with
Municipalities
The Chiapaneca regional government recognizes the highlands as a socioeconomic region called "altos Tsotsil-Tsetsal" that is formed by 17 municipalities. Culturally, the region is subdivided in Tsotsil and Tsetsal. Spanish is the main language spoken in San Cristobal, however in all of the rural municipalities the main language spoken is either Tsotsil or Tsetsal. In fact, Tsotsil is the lingua franca in the region and is spoken amongst many indigenous of other denominations and some Latinos.
Economy
The seasonal pattern of rain is ideal for the cultivation of maize and beans which are the staple food for most local indigenous people. However, at high elevations in Tierra Fria production only reaches subsistence levels. On the flanks of the highlands between an altitude of 4,000 and 5,500 ft coffee can be produced. Coffee constitutes a major crop and unlike beans and maize it is sold for cash.[6] Other cash crops are also produced within the region such as cabbage in Chamula or Mandarins in Tenejapa, but their importance is null compared with coffee.[7] Cattle and sheep are other commercial enterprises.[6][8]
Producers (usually indigenous) also face hardships when trying to commercialize their produce, as described by Brown[8] it is a usual practice for intermediaries also known as coyotes (usually ladinos) to charge producers a high fee to transport their harvest from their community to the cabezera municipal (head of county) or San Cristobal to be sold. In that same way, products sold directly in the communities tend to be more expensive than when sold in San Cristobal. As a result, some indigenous coffee producing communities have self organize in to coffee cooperatives offering an alternative to independent indigenous producers to commercialize their product.[8]
Marginalization
Economic activity in Los Altos is constrained by a high degree of
Ethnic segregation was and still is at the core of the economic system. Since colonial times and until recently Los Altos indigenous population has provided a steady flow of labor to other regions and to the non indigenous living within the region. San Cristobal was described as a "parasitic city that used its political, administrative, and religious powers to strip the Indians of the fruits of their labors."[11] The city was key in establishing an exploitation system in the region. At the center of the exploitation system there are long term ethnic divisions where mestizos (person of Hispanic culture from outside of Los Altos), ladinos (Person of Hispanic culture from within Los Altos historically San Cristobal) and indigenas (people from indigenous descent most of them are Tsotsiles or Tsetsales) have a place.[8][6][12][13] Brown, (1993) talks extensively about the inequalities that the system has created for indigenous peoples and how despite the efforts of the Mexican government those inequalities still persist.
Government intervention
Starting in the 1940s the Instituto Nacional Indigenista (INI) run a program aimed at "integrating" the indigenous people to the modern world. The public policy was known as indigenismo. Acculturation took place through the training of promotores -indigenous instructors- that taught Spanish, hygiene[citation needed] and cultural norms to indigenous communities. Another important component of the program was to introduce much needed infrastructure like roads, schools health clinics and commerce to the communities since as pointed out by Lewis,[10] during the 1950s modern infrastructure was virtually non existent outside of San Cristobal. Despite many difficulties and the use of controversial approaches, the program created a rudimentary highway system in which some of the communities are connected by all weather roads while most have access through dirt roads that are unusable during the rainy season or no road at all.[8][3] As a consequence bringing products to the communities can be a difficult task.
See also
References
- CEIEG (2011). Mapa s regionales. RegionV Tsotsil, Tsetsal. http://www.ceieg.chiapas.gob.mx/home/?page_id=4109
- CEIEG (2012). Regiones socioeconomicas y sus municipios. Retrieved on June 10, 2013 http://www.ceieg.chiapas.gob.mx/home/?p=8024
Notes
- ^ a b The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica (2012). Chiapas Highlands. Encyclopedia Britannica. 27 February 2012. Accessed 27 September 2021.[1]
- ^ Ochoa Gaona, S. & Gonzalez Espinosa, M. (2000). Land use and deforestation in the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. Applied Geography, 20(1), 17–42.
- ^ a b CEIEG (2013). Informacion estadistica, Retrieved on March 25, 2013 http://www.ceieg.chiapas.gob.mx/home/?page_id=10703&maccion=15
- . Retrieved January 18, 2013.
- ^ a b c Wiken, Ed, Francisco Jiménez Nava, and Glenn Griffith. 2011. North American Terrestrial Ecoregions—Level III. Commission for Environmental Cooperation, Montreal, Canada.
- ^ a b c Menegoni, L. (1990). Tuberculosis and health care in Highland Chiapas, Mexico: An ethnographic study. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. (Accession Order No.9123623).
- ^ De La Torre, S. (2012). Food security in La Hormiga, Mexico. Report submitted to CSID, Arizona State University.
- ^ a b c d e Brown, P. (1993). The creation of a Community: Class and ethnic struggle in Pantelhó, Chiapas, Mexico. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. (Accession Order No.9409193).
- ^ (CEIEG, 2011)
- ^ a b Lewis, S.E. (2008). Mexico's National Indigenist Institute and the Negotiation of Applied Anthropology in Highland Chiapas, 1951–1954. Ethnohistory, 55(4), 609–632.
- ^ a b c Viqueira, J.P. (2004). Las causas de una rebelión India: Chiapas, 1712. In Viqueira, J.P. & Ruz, M.H. (comps.).Chiapas: los rumbos de otra historia.
- ^ Whitmeyer, J.M. (1997). Ethnic succession in a Highland Chiapas Community. Rural Sociology, 62 (4), 454–473.
- ^ Fabrega, H. & Manning, P. (1973). An integrated theory of disease: Ladino-Mestizo views of disease in the Chiapas Highlands. Psychosomatic Medicine, 35, (3), 223–239.