Mexico City
The area in which Mexico City is established today used to be surrounded by lakes, which served for agricultural purposes for the various indigenous tribes that used to live in what is today Mexico City's urban area. The ancient Aztecs used to have a method for growing agricultural crops in the lakes, known as Chinampas. A Chinampa is an artificial island built in the shallow parts of the lake. Today, around 25 km of the original Aztec chinampas can be seen in Xochimilco, this area has been declared a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO, and some crops are still grown in the site for a further sell in the market.
The City of Mexico-Tenochtitlan was the capital of the Mexica empire, also known as the Aztec empire. The city was founded in the year 1325, and it soon became one of the most powerful cities in the region, submitting some other important surrounding cities to the Aztec Emperor, or Huey Tlatoani. During its splendor, Mexico-Tenochtitlan counted with nearly half million people. This was the expected population of the city when Hernan Cortez, the spanish conqueror arrived to this land and was received by Moctezuma Xocoyotzin, the Aztec emperor who, due to a legend, had him confused by one of the Aztec Gods, Quetzalcoatl.
After defeating the Aztecs, Hernán Cortés settled in the a surrounding village to tenochtitlan, Coyoacan. The house in which he lived can still be visited today. A large amount of extravagant buildings were built during this period while the indigenous population was excluded towards the surrounding areas of the city.
During the colonial period (1523 - 1810), Mexico City was the capital of the empire that comprised what is known today as Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Belice, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Trinidad & Tobago, Phillipines, California, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Utah, Oregon, Washington and parts of Wyoming, Kansas, Oklahoma, Iadaho and Montana.
It was during this period that the Metropolitan Cathedral was built on the top of the main Aztec religious temple, the Templo Mayor. Underneath Mexico City's central square, archeologists often find remains of what used to be one of the largest prehispanic religious and ceremonial centers, and parts of it can still be visited in the "Templo Mayor Museum", located just by the Metropolitan Cathedral.
After Mexico's independence in 1810, the city did not suffer any significant changes until the establishment of the Austrian Emperor Maximilian I, in 1864, Maximilian built the famous street "Paseo de la Reforma" to connect his residence, the Chapultepec Castle, with Mexico City's central area. During the period known as "Porfiriato" (1873 - 1910) the city was decorated with important avenues, plazas, parks, monuments and palaces, largely due to the French influence of this period.
Today, Mexico City's Historical Centre has one of the richest collections of historical sites, with over 1500 buildings declared as historical or artistic monuments.
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