La Villita, NM

La Villita is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Rio Arriba County's Española Valley. The 2020 census counted 999 residents. It sits near Alcalde along the north-central Rio Grande corridor, in the patchwork of small settlements that runs north from Española toward the larger farming and village communities of the valley. There is no separate municipal government attached to the CDP, so the place is read through county services, roads, school boundaries, acequia country, and its relationship to neighboring settlements. Española Public Schools serves La Villita, with Española Valley High School as the comprehensive secondary school.

Rio Arriba County handles county-level services, while Española supplies shopping, medical care, and other larger trips for the valley. The Alcalde La Villita Ditch gives the surrounding landscape a specific irrigation marker, and the name itself means little village. La Villita is a named residential and rural pocket connected to the same roads, irrigation channels, and school system as the nearby Rio Grande communities. Its local map makes the most sense at valley scale: Alcalde close by, Española to the south, and county services filling in the spaces between.