Tenochtitlan

Tenochtitlan, the Mexica capital once stood at this exact location, now the largest and most populated city in the Americas.

Tenochtitlan (Classical Nahuatl: Tenōchtitlān [tenoːtʃˈtitɬaːn]) (sometimes paired with Mexico as Mexico Tenochtitlan or Tenochtitlan Mexico) was a Nahua altepetl (city-state) located on an island in Lake Texcoco, in the Valley of Mexico. Founded in 1325, it became the seat of the growing Aztec empire in the 15th century, until captured by the Spanish in 1521. It subsequently became a cabecera of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and today the ruins of Tenochtitlan are located in the central part of Mexico City.

Its name comes from Nahuatl tetl = “rock” and nochtli = “prickly pear” and means “Among the prickly pears [growing among] rocks”.

Cuauhtepec: The Urban Blob

Aerlal view of the border of Mexico CIty with the State of Mexico in Cuahutepec.

Cuauhtepec is one of Mexico City’s most densely populated areas, where the city’s urbanization has reached the border limit as it crawls up green hills once highly used for cultivation. On October 30, 2009 a great rainfall gravely affected the region, surrounded by the Sierra of Guadalupe causing one death and a great economic and urban loss to the lower ends of the areas as water descended at great speeds. The lack of trees along with the heavy impermeability of the soil in the hills of Mexico City are responsible for flash floods and inability of the city natural water deposits to be re-filled. A condition that normally takes 100 hundred years for water to reach these deposits.