Tarímbaro is a municipality

Municipalities of Mexico

Municipalities are the second-level administrative division in Mexico . There are 2,438 municipalities in Mexico, making the average municipality population 45,616...

 in the Mexican

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...

 state of Michoacán

Michoacán

Michoacán officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Michoacán de Ocampo is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 113 municipalities and its capital city is Morelia...

 which Valtazar Gaona is the major of. The municipality has an area of 258.57 square kilometres (0.43% of the surface of the state) and is bordered to the north by Copándaro

Copándaro

Copándaro is a municipality located in the Mexican state of Michoacán. The municipality has an area of 173.52 square kilometres and is bordered to the north by Huandacareo and Cuitzeo, to the east and south by Tarímbaro, and to the west by Chucándiro. The municipality had a population of 8,131...

, Meson Nuevo and Cuitzeo, to the east by Álvaro Obregón, to the south by Morelia

Morelia

Morelia is a city and municipality in the north central part of the state of Michoacán in central Mexico. The city is in the Guayangareo Valley and is the capital of the state. The main pre-Hispanic cultures here were the P'urhépecha and the Matlatzinca, but no major cities were founded in the...

 and Charo

Charo, Michoacán

Charo is a municipality located in the Mexican state of Michoacán. The municipality has an area of 322.50 square kilometres and is bordered to the north by Tarímbaro and Álvaro Obregón, to the east by Indaparapeo, to the south by Tzitzío, and to the west and southwest by Morelia...

, and to the west by Chucándiro. The municipality had a population of 51,479 inhabitants according to the 2005 census. Its municipal seat is the city of the same name.

The economy of the municipality is mostly based on agriculture and ranching.

In pre-Hispanic times the region of present day Tarímbaro was inhabited by the semi-nomadic Chichimeca

Chichimeca

Chichimeca was the name that the Nahua peoples of Mexico generically applied to a wide range of semi-nomadic peoples who inhabited the north of modern-day Mexico and southwestern United States, and carried the same sense as the European term "barbarian"...

 (who knew the area "place of the willows") and the P'urhépecha

P'urhépecha

The P'urhépecha, normally spelled Purépecha in Spanish and in English and traditionally referred to as Tarascans, are an indigenous people centered in the northwestern region of the Mexican state of Michoacán, principally in the area of the cities of Uruapan and Pátzcuaro...

people of Central Mexico.