How did the Mexica found Tenochtitlan, today's Mexico City?

The Mexica found Tenochtitlan

Los mexicas fundan Tenochtitlan

c. 1325. According to their own histories, the Mexica were late arrivals in the Valley of Mexico, a wandering people from a homeland called Aztlan whose god…

Where: Mexico, Mexico City

What happened

According to their own histories, the Mexica were late arrivals in the Valley of Mexico, a wandering people from a homeland called Aztlan whose god Huitzilopochtli told them to settle where they saw an eagle perched on a prickly-pear cactus. They found the sign on a marshy island in Lake Texcoco and there, traditionally in 1325, founded Tenochtitlan, 'place of the cactus fruit'. Poor and hemmed in by stronger neighbours, they served the Tepanecs of Azcapotzalco as soldiers while turning the lake into farmland with chinampas, raised fields built on the water, and linking the island to the shore by causeways. Two centuries later it was a city of perhaps 200,000, laid out around the Templo Mayor. Mexico City stands on its ruins, and the eagle, cactus and snake are on the Mexican flag.

Say it

Los mexicas fundaron Tenochtitlan en una isla del lago de Texcoco.

The Mexica founded Tenochtitlan on an island in Lake Texcoco.

Why it matters

Tenochtitlan became Mexico City, the largest Spanish-speaking city in the world; its founding legend is Mexico's national emblem and chinampa and Tenochtitlan are Nahuatl words every Mexican knows.

There today

Eat
Mexico City stands where the island city stood; it is also where tacos al pastor took their pork-and-pineapple form, carved from the spinning trompo.

Read about it

Connected

Sources

  1. Tenochtitlan — National Geographic Society – Education
  2. Tenochtitlan — World History Encyclopedia