Valley of Mexico in the context of "Lake Texcoco"

Mexico City is the capital and largest city of Mexico, as well as the most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and financial centers in the world, and is classified as an Alpha world city according to the Globalization and World Cities Research Network (GaWC) 2024 ranking. Mexico City is located in the Valley of Mexico within the high Mexican central plateau, at an altitude of 2,240 meters (7,350 ft). The city has 16 boroughs or demarcaciones territoriales, which are in turn divided into neighborhoods or colonias.

The 2020 population for the city proper was 9,209,944, with a land area of 1,495 square kilometers (577 sq mi), making it the second largest Spanish-speaking city proper in the world. According to the most recent definition agreed upon by the federal and state governments, the population of Greater Mexico City is 21,804,515, which makes it the world's sixth-largest metropolitan area and the second-largest urban agglomeration in the Western Hemisphere (behind São Paulo, Brazil). Greater Mexico City has a GDP of $411 billion in 2011, which makes it one of the most productive urban areas in the world. The city was responsible for generating 15.8% of Mexico's GDP, and the metropolitan area accounted for about 22% of the country's GDP. If it were an independent country in 2013, Mexico City would be the fifth-largest economy in Latin America.

19°41′33″N 98°50′38″W / 19.69250°N 98.84389°W / 19.69250; -98.84389

Teotihuacan (/teɪˌoʊtiːwəˈkɑːn/; Spanish: Teotihuacán, Spanish pronunciation: [teotiwaˈkan] ; modern Nahuatl pronunciation) is an ancient Mesoamerican city located in a sub-valley of the Valley of Mexico, which is located in the State of Mexico, 40 kilometers (25 mi) northeast of modern-day Mexico City.

The Aztec Empire, also known as the Triple Alliance (Classical Nahuatl: Ēxcān Tlahtōlōyān, [ˈjéːʃkaːn̥ t͡ɬaʔtoːˈlóːjaːn̥]) or the Tenochca Empire, was an alliance of three Nahua city-states: Mexico-Tenochtitlan, Tetzcoco, and Tlacopan. These three city-states ruled that area in and around the Valley of Mexico from 1428 until the combined forces of the Spanish conquistadores and their native allies who ruled under Hernán Cortés defeated them in 1521. Its people and civil society are historiographically referred to as the Aztecs or the Culhua-Mexica.

The alliance was formed from the victorious factions of a civil war fought between the city of Azcapotzalco and its former tributary provinces. Despite the initial conception of the empire as an alliance of three self-governed city-states, the capital Tenochtitlan became dominant militarily. By the time the Spanish arrived in 1519, the lands of the alliance were effectively ruled from Tenochtitlan, while other partners of the alliance had taken subsidiary roles.

Tenochtitlan, also known as Mexico-Tenochtitlan, was a large Mexican altepetl in what is now the historic center of Mexico City. The exact date of the founding of the city is unclear, but the date 13 March 1325 was chosen in 1925 to celebrate the 600th anniversary of the city. The city was built on an island in what was then Lake Texcoco in the Valley of Mexico. The city was the capital of the expanding Aztec Empire in the 15th century until it was captured by the Tlaxcaltec and the Spanish in 1521.

At its peak, it was the largest city in the pre-Columbian Americas. It subsequently became a cabecera of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. Today, the ruins of Tenochtitlan are in the historic center of the Mexican capital. The World Heritage Site of Xochimilco contains what remains of the geography (water, boats, floating gardens) of the Mexica capital.

The Aztecs (/ˈæztɛks/ AZ-teks) were a Mesoamerican civilization that flourished in central Mexico from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language. Aztec culture was organized into city-states (altepetl), some of which joined to form alliances, political confederations, or empires. The Aztec Empire was a confederation of three city-states established in 1427: Tenochtitlan (the capital city of the Mexica or Tenochca), Tetzcoco, and Tlacopan, previously part of the Tepanec empire, whose dominant power was Azcapotzalco. Although the term Aztecs is often narrowly restricted to the Mexica of Tenochtitlan, it is also broadly used to refer to Nahua polities or peoples of central Mexico in the prehispanic era, as well as the Spanish colonial era (1521–1821).

Most ethnic groups of central Mexico in the post-classic period shared essential cultural traits of Mesoamerica. The culture of central Mexico includes maize cultivation, the social division between nobility (pipiltin) and commoners (macehualtin), a pantheon, and the calendric system. Particular to the Mexica of Tenochtitlan was the patron god Huitzilopochtli, twin pyramids, and the ceramic styles known as Aztec I to IV. The Mexica were late-comers to the Valley of Mexico, and founded the city-state of Tenochtitlan on unpromising islets in Lake Texcoco, later becoming the dominant power of the Aztec Triple Alliance or Aztec Empire which conquered other city-states throughout Mesoamerica. It originated in 1427 as an alliance between the city-states Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan to defeat the Tepanec state of Azcapotzalco, which had previously dominated the Basin of Mexico. Soon Texcoco and Tlacopan were relegated to junior partnership in the alliance, with Tenochtitlan the dominant power. The empire extended its reach by a combination of trade and military conquest. It was never a true territorial empire controlling territory by large military garrisons in conquered provinces but rather dominated its client city-states primarily by installing friendly rulers in conquered territories, constructing marriage alliances between the ruling dynasties, and extending an imperial ideology to its client city-states. Client city-states paid taxes, not tribute to the Aztec emperor, the Huey Tlatoani, in an economic strategy limiting communication and trade between outlying polities, making them dependent on the imperial center for the acquisition of luxury goods. The political clout of the empire reached far south into Mesoamerica conquering polities as far south as Chiapas and Guatemala and spanning Mesoamerica from the Pacific to the Atlantic oceans.

The pre-Columbian (or pre-Hispanic) history of the territory now making up the country of Mexico is known through the work of archaeologists and epigraphers, and through the accounts of Spanish conquistadores, settlers, and clergymen, as well as those of the indigenous chroniclers of the immediate post-conquest period.

Human presence in the Mexican region was once thought to date back 40,000 years, based upon what were believed to be ancient human footprints discovered in the Valley of Mexico; but, after further investigation using radioactive dating, it appears that this was an overestimate. It is currently unclear whether 21,000-year-old campfire remains found in the Valley of Mexico are the earliest human remains in Mexico. Indigenous peoples of Mexico began to selectively breed maize plants around 8000 BC. Evidence shows a marked increase in pottery working by 2300 BC and the beginning of intensive corn farming between 1800 and 1500 BC.

The Aztec Empire, also known as the Triple Alliance (Classical Nahuatl: Ēxcān Tlahtōlōyān, [ˈjéːʃkaːn̥ t͡ɬaʔtoːˈlóːjaːn̥]) or historiographically as the Tenochca Empire, was an alliance of three Nahua city-states: Mexico-Tenochtitlan, Tetzcoco, and Tlacopan. These three city-states ruled that area in and around the Valley of Mexico from 1428 until the combined forces of the Spanish conquistadores and their native allies who ruled under Hernán Cortés defeated them in 1521. Its people and civil society are historiographically referred to as the Aztecs or the Culhua-Mexica.

The alliance was formed from the victorious factions of a civil war fought between the city of Azcapotzalco and its former tributary provinces. Despite the initial conception of the empire as an alliance of three self-governed city-states, the capital Tenochtitlan became dominant militarily. By the time the Spanish arrived in 1519, the lands of the alliance were effectively ruled from Tenochtitlan, while other partners of the alliance had taken subsidiary roles.

Tlahtoāni (Classical Nahuatl: tlahtoāni pronounced [t͡ɬaʔtoˈaːniˀ] , "ruler, sovereign"; plural tlahtohqueh [t͡ɬaʔˈtoʔkeʔ]) is a historical title used by the dynastic rulers of āltepēmeh (singular āltepētl, often translated into English as "city-state"), autonomous political entities formed by many pre-Columbian Nahuatl-speaking peoples in the Valley of Mexico during the Postclassic Period. The title of huēyi tlahtoāni [es] ([ˈweːjiˀ t͡ɬaʔtoˈaːniˀ], "great ruler, emperor") was used by the rulers of the Aztec Empire, an alliance between the āltepēmeh of Tenochtitlan, Tetzcoco, and Tlacopan.

Each āltepētl had its own tlahtoāni who would concurrently function as its ruler, high priest and commander-in-chief. The tlahtoāni wielded ultimate authority over all land within the āltepētl, overseeing tribute collection, market activities, temple affairs, and the resolution of judicial disputes. Typically a dynastic ruler hailing from the royal lineage, the tlahtoāni served for life. However, in certain instances, a council of nobles, elders, and priests could elect a tlahtoāni from a pool of four candidates.