Mexico City

There is no doubt that Mexico City is as old as a complex metropolis: founded in 1325; last epicentre of the powerful cultures heirs of the red race and the setting in which Indian and Spanish fused violently with the blood of the conquest.

The great valley of Mexico occupies a basin between two chains of mountains 2,240 meters high above the sea level, covering an extension of 3129 square kilometres with a population of 20 million inhabitants (taking into account municipalities of the metropolitan zone). In this hulk that devours the landscape circulate 2.6 million cars; in the Collective Transportation System, the Metro, 5 million users are transferred through its intricate network of ways and stations; in this city there exists 316,000 businesses, that is 80% of the total existing in all the country, generating a participation of 24.1% of the Total Internal Product; 344 hospitals, 25,000 hotel rooms, 161 museums,30 concert rooms, 106 galleries of art, 107 cinemas. ..it is the largest city of the world!

This central zone of the Mexican high plateau has been inhabited for 20,000 years, for which history is lost in time. Nevertheless it is known that toward the XIII century arrives at the zone the Mexica group, who leaded by the priest Tenoch, concluded their secular pilgrimage finding an eagle devouring a snake on a prickly pear: the signal given by the spirit to settle down in that place. The city of Mexico-Tenochtitlan is founded on June 8, 1325. The small island, expanded by a system of refill and plot called chinampa, gave origin to small canals that served to a great number of houses, palaces, temples, a very complete zoo, plazas, markets and aqueducts. The city maintained an intense relation with the rest of the valley by means of huge road bridges and dams: toward the west was Tlacopan, to the south was Xochimilco and to the north Tepeyacac, as well as boisterous jetties. Towards 1519 the city possessed the refinement and the magnificence of the most important metropolis of the world.