Mexico City

Mexico City is the capital city of Mexico.

It is very high up, in a valley with mountains all around. Millions and millions of people live there. Long ago, this land was covered by lakes.

Mexico City is the capital of Mexico. It lies in a high valley called the Valley of Mexico, with mountains on every side. Downtown is about 2,240 meters above sea level.

About 9.2 million people lived in the city in 2020, and more than 23 million in the whole metropolitan area around it. Unlike most big cities, it does not stand beside a river. Instead, the valley once held several large lakes, and the city began on an island in one of them.

Mexico City occupies an inland basin, the Valley of Mexico or Mesa Central, an extension of the southern Mexican Plateau also called Anáhuac (Nahuatl: "Close to the Water") because it once held several large lakes. Downtown lies at about 2,240 m, and the name México comes from Nahuatl, the language of the valley's pre-colonial inhabitants. Britannica notes it is one of the few major cities not built along a river.

Spanish conquistadors founded the city in 1521 on the razed island-capital of Tenochtitlan, making it one of the oldest continuously inhabited urban settlements in the Western Hemisphere. In 2020 the city had 9,209,944 people and the metropolitan area about 23.1 million. It is divided into 16 boroughs, and the metropolitan area includes more than two dozen self-governing municipalities in the surrounding State of Mexico.

In the middle of the city is a giant square called the Zócalo.

Around it stand a huge cathedral and a long palace. Next door, people have dug up the stones of a very old Aztec temple. A big museum shows treasures from long ago.

The heart of the city is the Zócalo, a huge paved square, the largest public square in Latin America. On its north side is the Metropolitan Cathedral, built over nearly 250 years, from 1573 to 1813. On its east side is the National Palace, where Spanish viceroys once lived and where Mexico's president has an official seat.

Just off the Zócalo, archaeologists have uncovered the Templo Mayor, the main temple of the Aztec city, with a museum full of objects found there. In Chapultepec Park, the National Museum of Anthropology displays treasures from Teotihuacan and other great ancient sites.

UNESCO inscribed the Historic Center of Mexico City and Xochimilco in 1987; Britannica counts more than 1,400 buildings from the 16th to 19th centuries in the site. The Zócalo (Plaza de la Constitución), the largest public square in Latin America, is framed by the Metropolitan Cathedral (1573–1813), which mixes Renaissance, Baroque and Neoclassical styles and was famous for its uneven sinking until a stabilization project ended in 2000; the National Palace, once the viceroys' residence and now the president's official seat; and the city hall.

The Templo Mayor, the Aztecs' main temple, is the central city's chief archaeological site, with a museum of finds beside it; UNESCO calls the complex exceptional witness to an extinct civilization. The Palace of Fine Arts (1904–1934) is a museum and performance hall. The National Museum of Anthropology, founded in 1825, has occupied its building in Chapultepec Park since 1964. The UNAM campus, built in 1949–52 and covered with mosaic murals, became a World Heritage site in 2007, and Teotihuacan lies about 50 km to the northeast.

In Mexico City, families can ride colorful boats along old canals.

There are giant parks, big museums and paintings on the walls of buildings. Many people love to play and watch soccer.

In Xochimilco, in the south of the city, colorfully decorated boats float along canals past chinampas, the raised fields first built in Aztec times. Chapultepec Park is a giant green space with a zoo, a castle and museums.

Mexico City is full of art. Painters such as Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros covered public buildings with murals, huge paintings on walls, and galleries devoted to the artist Frida Kahlo draw many visitors. The city's university, UNAM, traces its roots to a royal university founded in 1551. Soccer is the most popular sport, and the city has hosted the World Cup final twice, in 1970 and 1986.

The capital holds Mexico's largest concentration of universities. UNAM, which traces its roots to a royal university founded in 1551, one of the oldest in the Americas, is one of the world's largest universities; its main campus, built on the lava flows of the Pedregal in 1949–52, is decorated with mosaic murals by Juan O'Gorman, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Diego Rivera and others. Galleries devoted to artists such as Frida Kahlo draw many visitors.

In Xochimilco, 28 km south of the center, the last canals and chinampas preserve the basin's pre-Hispanic way of farming, and part of the area is an ecological reserve. Soccer dominates sport: the city has hosted the World Cup final twice, in 1970 and 1986, and some sports facilities date from the 1968 Summer Olympics. Most of the water supply comes from about 1,200 wells, some more than 300 m deep; pumping so much groundwater has helped make parts of the metropolitan area sink.