![]() In a letter to the Spanish King Charles V, Cortés claimed that Tenochtitlán was as enormous as Seville or Córdoba, Spain. At the time, the vibrant city was thought to be five times larger than London. ![]() On November 8, 1519, Cortés and his soldiers arrived at the floating island of Tenochtitlán for the first time. It’s no wonder that Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés was mesmerized when he came across the metropolis known as “the Impossible City.” Tenochtitlán was home to the Sacred Precinct, a place decorated with palaces and temples alike. They also had a massive market that served almost 60,000 customers per day. The Aztecs established their own calendars to predict the harvest and “chinampas,” or floating gardens, to produce large amounts of food. Almost half a million people were located there, and the island spanned at least five square miles. Evidently, this was the Mexica tribe’s signal that they needed to relocate to the site where the saw the prophetic sign: a bug-infested, isolated island in the center of Lake Texcoco.īefore the Spanish conquered Tenochtitlán, it was the bustling center of Mesoamerica. ![]() Supposedly, the Mexica tribe spotted the Chichimec Eagle god Huitzilopochtli devouring a snake while sitting on a cactus. Legend has it that the Mexica people migrated to Tenochtitlán from the mythical town of Aztlan, or “Place of the Herons” because of a powerful omen. So why would the Aztecs choose this marshy place as their capital? The impossible city It was also constructed in the heart of Mexico’s swampiest lake. Not only that, but the Aztec capital was susceptible to extreme earthquakes, flash floods, and horrible air pollution. Tenochtitlán was surrounded by active volcanoes, including the ever-explosive Popocatépetl. Its name is commonly thought to come from the words “nahuatl, ” meaning “rock, ” and “nōchtli, meaning “prickly pear.” Therefore, the city’s name is popularly translated to mean, “Among the prickly pears rocks.” Located in modern-day Mexico City, the historic capital was key to expanding the Aztec empire in the 15th century. While historians are unsure of when Tenochtitlán was founded, they believe that it established on March 13, 1325.
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