Mexico City is a city of superlatives. It is both the oldest (founded in 1325) and the highest (7,350 feet) metropolis on the North American continent. And with an estimated 22 million inhabitants it's the most populous city in the western hemisphere. As the gargantuan pyramids of Teotihuacan attest, the area around Mexico City was occupied from early times by a great civilization, probably Nahuatl in origin. The founding farther south of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, did not occur until more than 600 years after Teotihuacan was abandoned, around AD 750. Between these periods, from 900 to 1200, the Toltec Empire controlled the valley of Mexico. As the story goes, the nomadic Aztecs were searching for a promised land in which to settle. Their prophecies announced that they would recognize the spot when they encountered an eagle perched on a prickly pear cactus and holding a snake in its beak. In 1325, the disputed date of Tenochtitlan founding, they discovered this eagle in the valley of Mexico, the image of which is now emblazoned on the national flag. They settled on what was then an island in shallow Lake Tex coco and connected it to lake shore satellite towns by a network of cadenzas (canals and causeways, now freeways). Even then it was the largest city in the western hemisphere and, according to historians, one of the three largest cities on Earth. When he first laid eyes on Tenochtitlan in the early 16th century, Spanish conquistador Hernia Cortes was dazzled by the glistening clarinetist metropolis, which reminded him of Venice.
A combination of factors made the Spanish conquest possible. Aztec emperor Montezuma II believed the white, bearded Cortes on horseback to be the mighty plumed serpent-god Quetzalcoatl, who, according to prophecy, was supposed to arrive from the east in the year 1519 to rule the land. Thus, Montezuma welcomed the foreigner with gifts of gold and palatial accommodations. In return, Cortes initiated a massacre. He was backed by a huge army of Indians from other settlements such as Cholera and Tlaloc, who saw a chance to end their submission to the Aztec empire. With these forces, the European tactical advantages of horses, firearms, and, inadvertently, the introduction of smallpox and the common cold, Cortés succeeded in erasing Tenochtitlán only two centuries after it was founded.
Cortés began building the capital of what he patriotically dubbed New Spain, the Spanish empire's colony that would spread north to cover what is now the southwestern United States, and south to Panama. Mexico comes from Mexica (pronounced meh shee ka), which was the Aztecs' name for themselves. (Aztec is the Spaniards' name for the Mexica.) At the site of Tenochtitlán's demolished ceremonial center now the 10 acre Zócalo Cortés started building a church (the precursor of the impressive Metropolitan Cathedral), mansions, and government buildings. He utilized the slave labor and the artistry of the vanquished native Mexicans. On top of the ruins of their city, and using rubble from it, they were forced to build what became the most European style city in North America. But instead of having the random layout of contemporary medieval cities, it followed the grid pattern of the Aztecs. For much of the construction material the Spaniards quarried the local porous, volcanic reddish stone called tezontle. The Spaniards also drained the lakes, preferring wheels and horses (which they introduced to Mexico) over canals and canoes for transport. The land-filled lake bed turned out to be a soggy support for the immense buildings that have been slowly sinking into it since they were built.
The city flourished during the colonial period, filling what is now its historic center with architectural treasures. The Franciscans and Dominicans eagerly set about converting the Aztecs to Christianity, but some indigenous customs persisted. Street vending, for instance, is a city signature even today. It is said that the conquering soldiers looked out on them in 1520 and said they had never seen such a market, not even in Rome. In 1571 the Spaniards established the Inquisition in New Spain and burned heretics at its palace headquarters, now a museum in Plaza de Santo Domingo.
It took almost three centuries for Mexicans to rise up successfully against Spain. The historic downtown street 16 de September commemorates the "declaration" of Independence. On that date in 1810, Miguel Hidalgo, father of the Catholic Church and of a couple of illegitimate daughters rang a church bell and cried out his history making grito (shout) "Death to the porcupines (wealthy Spaniards living in Mexico), long live the Virgin of Guadalupe!" Excommunicated and executed the following year, Hidalgo is one of many independence heroes who fostered a truly popular movement, culminating in Mexico's independence in 1821. The liberty bell that now hangs above the main entrance to the National Palace is rung on every eve of September 16 by the president of the republic, who then shouts a revised version of the patriot's cry "Viva México"
Flying in or out of Mexico City you get an aerial view of the remaining part of Lake Tex coco on the eastern outskirts of the city. In daylight you can notice the sprawling flatness of the 1,480 square km (570 square mi) Mes eta de Acanthus (Valley of Mexico), completely surrounded by mountains. On its southeastern side, two usually snowcapped volcanoes, Popocatepetl and Iztaccíhuatl, are both well over 17,000 feet high. After a period of relative tranquility, Popocatépetl, known as El Popo, awoke and began spewing smoke, ash, and some lava in the mid 1990 it has remained intermittently active since then.
