Map - San Pedro Pochutla (San Pedro Pochutla)

San Pedro Pochutla is a city and municipality located in the south of Oaxaca state, Mexico next to the Pacific Ocean. It is an important commercial, transportation and administrative hub for the Pochutla District in the east of the Costa Region. Pochutla is located at the junction of coastal Highway 200 and Highway 175 to Oaxaca, with 175 functioning as the town's main thoroughfare. Its name means "place of kapok trees (Ceiba pentandra)", and most of the city is built on a lakebed which was drained during the colonial period. The municipality is best known as being the home of the oceanside communities of Puerto Ángel and Zipolite.

The Pochutla area was settled by Zapotec tribes from Amatlán, Miahuatlán and Cuatlan in the 8th century. The settlement now known as Pochutla was founded around the same time as nearby Loxicha, Cozoaltepec and others. The area was part of the dominion of Tututepec. At the time of the Spanish conquest, the Spanish town of Pochutla was founded by Pedro Molina, Isidro Salinas, Julio Diaz and others, initially with the name of Huehuetan. The locals were converted to Christianity and the first church was founded just south of the modern town and called San Pedro Huehuetán Laguna. Much of the modern city is built on what was a lakebed. Because of illnesses such as malaria and yellow fever, this lake was drained. Later in the colonial period, the name was changed to Pochutla due to the number of kapok trees in the area.

According to tradition and archeological evidence located in the hills of Vigía, Espino and El Cometa, there were arms hidden here by pirates, who were called Pichilingües.

In 1833, Conservative rebels led by General Valentín Canalizo fled through here as they were pursued by government troops. Their last battle was at the nearby Soledad Ranch in which they were destroyed by federal forces, forcing the remaining soldiers to scatter.

Conservative rebels continued to be active in this region until the 1860s with José Eustaquio Manzano and Apolonio Manzano leading the rebel cause, reinvigorated due to the passage of the Reform Laws. In 1858 and 1859, federal forces were dispatched here to subdue the rebels who had taken to guerrilla warfare. The last battle between the Manzano brothers and federal troops took place in 1860, with the brothers captured and taken to the state capital in 1861. The municipality has a petroleum reserve called Aragón, five km from the community of Puerto Angel. The deposit was going to be exploited by an English company, who brought over equipment in 1937, but expropriation of oil in 1938 by President Lázaro Cárdenas brought this to a halt. It has yet to be tapped.

Until late in the 20th century, much of the population of the area lived on subsistence farming, with the only work available during the harvest season on the coffee plantations. In the 1970, the state government expropriated most of the coastal land from Zipolite to Zapotengo and made it ejido or communal land with the aim of development. During the 2006 teachers strike in the state of Oaxaca, groups supporting and opposing the strike clashed here on the main road, Highway 175. The highway was blocked by those supporting the strike to prevent those opposing it from realizing their “March for Education.” The highway was blocked with busses and cars preventing those bound for the state capital from leaving.

Other recent strikes include those by taxi drivers and others in transportation who have blocked roads resulting in monetary losses for the municipality. The dispute centered on concessions for passenger transportation between Pochutla and beach communities such as Zipolite. Actions by strikers have included the blockage of roads including coastal Highway 200.