Toltec in the context of "Mythological"

The Bajío (the Lowlands) is a cultural and geographical region within the central Mexican plateau which roughly spans from northwest of Mexico City to the main silver mines in the northern-central part of the country. This includes (from south to north) the states of Querétaro, Guanajuato, parts of Jalisco (Centro, Los Altos de Jalisco), Aguascalientes and parts of Zacatecas, San Luis Potosí and Michoacán.

Located at the border between Mesoamerica and Aridoamerica, El Bajío saw relatively few permanent settlements and big civilizations during Pre-Columbian history, being mostly inhabited by the Otomi and semi-nomadic tribes known to the Aztecs as the "Chichimeca" peoples (poorly attested conglomerate of Uto-Nahua groups, from whom the Toltec and the Aztecs were probably descended). The tribes that inhabited the Bajío proved to be some of the hardest to conquer for the Spanish—peace was ultimately achieved via truce and negotiation—but due to its strategic location in the Silver Route, it also drew prominent attention from Europe, and some of the flagship Mexican colonial cities were built there, such as Zacatecas and Guanajuato. Abundant mineral wealth and favorable farming conditions would soon turn the region into the wealthiest of New Spain. At the beginning of the 19th century, El Bajío was also the place of the ignition of the Mexican War of Independence, and saw most of its battles during the initial phase of the war, including the Cry of Dolores, the storming of the Alhóndiga de Granaditas and the Battle of Calderón Bridge.

Ancient Maya art comprises the visual arts of the Maya civilization, an eastern and south-eastern Mesoamerican culture made up of a great number of small kingdoms in what is now Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras. Many regional artistic traditions existed side by side, usually coinciding with the changing boundaries of Maya polities. This civilization took shape in the course of the later Preclassic Period (from c. 750 BC to 100 BC), when the first cities and monumental architecture started to develop and the hieroglyphic script came into being. Its greatest artistic flowering occurred during the seven centuries of the Classic Period (c. 250 to 950 CE).

Maya art forms tend to be more stiffly organized during the Early Classic (250-550 CE) and to become more expressive during the Late Classic phase (550-950 CE). In the course of history, influences of various other Mesoamerican cultures were absorbed. In the late Preclassic, the influence of the Olmec style is still discernible (as in the San Bartolo murals), whereas in the Early Classic, the style of central Mexican Teotihuacan made itself felt, just as that of the Toltec in the Postclassic.

The Valley of Mexico (Spanish: Valle de México; Nahuatl languages: Anahuac, lit. 'Land Between the Waters'), sometimes also called Basin of Mexico, is a highlands plateau in central Mexico. Surrounded by mountains and volcanoes, the Valley of Mexico was a centre for several pre-Columbian civilizations including Teotihuacan, the Toltec, and the Aztec Empire. The valley used to contain five interconnected lakes called Lake Zumpango, Lake Xaltocan (Nahuatl languages: Xāltocān), Lake Xochimilco, Lake Chalco and the largest, Lake Texcoco, covering about 1,500 square kilometers (580 sq mi) of the valley floor. When the Spaniards arrived in the Valley of Mexico, it had one of the highest population concentrations in the world with about one million people. After the conquest of the Aztec Empire, the Spaniards rebuilt the largest and most dominant city, Mēxihco Tenōchtitlan, renaming it Ciudad de México (Mexico City) and over time began to drain the lakes' waters to control flooding.

The Valley of Mexico is located in the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt. The valley contains most of the Mexico City metropolitan area, as well as parts of the State of Mexico, Hidalgo, Tlaxcala, and Puebla. The Basin of Mexico covers approximately 9,600 km (3,700 sq mi) in the NNE-SSW direction with length to width dimensions of approximately 125 km (78 miles) to 75 km (47 miles) The Valley of Mexico can be subdivided into four basins, but the largest and most-studied is the area that contains Mexico City. This section of the valley in particular is colloquially referred to as the "Valley of Mexico".The valley has a minimum elevation of 2,200 meters (7,200 ft) above sea level and is surrounded by mountains and volcanoes that reach elevations of over 5,000 meters (16,000 ft). It is an enclosed valley with no natural outlet for water to flow to the sea although there is a gap to the north where there is a high mesa but no high mountain peaks. Within this vulnerable watershed all the native fishes were extinct by the end of the 20th century. Hydrologically, the valley has three features. The first feature is the lakebeds of five now-extinct lakes, which are located in the southernmost and largest of the four sub-basins. The other two features are piedmont, and the mountainsides that collect the precipitation that eventually flows to the lake area. These last two are found in all four of the sub-basins of the valley. Today, the Valley drains through a series of artificial canals to the Tula River, and eventually the Páruco River and the Gulf of Mexico. Seismic activity is frequent here, and the valley is an earthquake-prone zone.

The Nahuas (/ˈnɑːwɑːz/ NAH-wahz) are a Uto-Nahuan ethnic group and one of the Indigenous people of Mexico, with Nahua minorities also in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. They comprise the largest Indigenous group in Mexico, as well as the largest population out of any North American Indigenous people group who are native speakers of their respective Indigenous language. Amongst the Nahua, this is Nahuatl. When ranked amongst all Indigenous languages across the Americas, Nahuas list third after speakers of Guaraní and Quechua.

The Mexica (Aztecs) are of Nahua ethnicity, as are their historical enemies and allies of the Spaniards: the Tlaxcallans (Tlaxcaltecs). The Toltecs which predated both groups are often thought to have been Nahua as well. However, in the pre-Columbian period Nahuas were subdivided into many groups that did not necessarily share a common identity.

Cuzcatlan (Pipil: Kuskatan; Nahuatl: Cuzcatlan) was a pre-Columbian Nahua state confederation of the Mesoamerican postclassical period that extended from the Paz river to the Lempa river (covering most of western El Salvador); this was the nation that Spanish chroniclers came to call the Pipils or Cuzcatlecos. No codices survive to shed light on this confederation except the Annals of the Cakchiquels, although Spanish chroniclers such as Domingo Juarros, Palaces, Lozano, and others claim that some codices did exist but have since disappeared. Their Nawat language, art and temples revealed that they had significant Mayan and Toltec influence from the ties they had with the Itza in Yucatan. It is believed that the first settlers to arrive came from the Toltec people in central Mexico, mostly Puebla during the Chichimeca-Toltec civil wars in the 10th century AD.

The people of Cuzcatan came to be called Pipiles in the historical chronicles, a term that today is usually translated as "boys" or less likely as "young nobles." This was due to the perception of the Central Nahuatl-speaking Tlaxcala and Mexica allies of the Spanish that the Nahuas of Cuzcatan were speaking a corrupted version of their language in those regions. An alternative theory is that it meant "nobles," from the Nahuas social class "Pipiltin" and the Nawat Pipil origin story that they are descendants of Nanahuatzin.

Lake Zumpango (Spanish: Laguna de Zumpango; Nahuatl languages: Tzompanco, lit. 'string of scalps') is an endorheic basin located in the Valley of Mexico in the municipality of Zumpango and adjacent to the municipality of Teoloyucan. Tzompanco was formerly the northernmost of five interconnected lakes, covering about 1,500 square kilometers (580 sq mi) (the other lakes being Lake Xaltocan, Lake Xochimilco, Lake Chalco and Lake Texcoco). The Valley of Mexico was a centre for several pre-Columbian civilizations including Teotihuacan, the Toltec, and the Aztec Empire. After the conquest of the Aztec Empire, the Spaniards began to drain the lakes' waters to control flooding. Over the centuries Lake Zumpango lost it its inflows and outflows and became polluted by sewage and garbage dumps. However, in recent years, the lagoon is becoming cleaner again.