LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Mexico City
built 500 days ago
Mexico City was in many ways the quintessential city of the early modern period. While many cities in the Valley of Mexico had existed for several centuries prior to the arrival of the Spaniards in 1519, Mexico City was relatively young, having been founded in 1325. It was originally a swampy safe haven for the Mexica people, popularly known as the Aztecs. Locating in the middle of the lake that filled the Valley of Mexico, the Mexica used land-reclamation techniques to convert this swampy area into a city of nearly a quarter million inhabitants by the time of the conquest. They called their city Tenochtitlán. Over the course of time a twin city, Tlatelolco, developed to the north and was home of the merchants who served as the commercial "glue" of the Mexica empire.
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A good place to start your tour of Mexico City is the Bosque de Chapultepec (Chapultepec woods) and surrounding area. This is a wonderful place to spend the day, walking through the enormous green spaces, the Jardín Botánico (Botanical Gardens) or the Parque Rosario Castellanos. It is ... very pleasant to walk by the lakes or even take a rowing boat and row across the lakes. In Chapultepec there are both snack bars and restaurants along the way. There are also several museums, such as the Museo Nacional de Antropología, one of the most famous in the world; the Museo Rufino Tamayo ; the Museo de Arte Moderno; the Museo del Papalote, great fun for both children and adults; the Museo Nacional de Historia; the Museo de Tecnología Moderna; the Museo de la Historia Natural; the Museo Sala de Arte Público David Alfaro Siqueiros or the Museo del Caracol. One of the most interesting things in the area is the Castillo de Chapultepec.
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Mexico City has many tourist attractions. These attractions are ... of cultural and historical significance. Numerous museums, many of which are in Chapultepec Park, feature National Museum of Anthropology, the National Museum of History (Chapultepec Castle), Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Natural History. Additional museums in Chapultepec Park include the Rufino Tamayo Museum, Papalote Children’s Museum. Other musuems include the Museum of Mexico City, the home of Frida Kahlo (Coyoacán neighborhood) and the Templo Mayor museum, Mexico City's outstanding theater is the Palace of Fine Arts. Among the most important sites are the National Palace, the secretariat of public education, the Chapultepec Castle, the Palace of Justice, and the National Museum of History.
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Mexico City has a long and fascinating past, an intriguing present and an exciting future. Many of the area's pre-colonial capitals were based here, the last being the Aztec, Tenochtitlan, which in the 14th-century was the largest city in the Western Hemisphere. Remains of this old capital can be visited today or you can explore the more modern colonial treasures that are abundant, such as the Museo Nacional de Antropologia or the impressive Zocalo Square. The Palacio de Bellas Artes is a fabulous building, designed by the famous architect Porfirio Diaz and is worth visiting. You really need to spend as long as possible in Mexico City, to fully appreciate the majesty and excitement of this fabulous capital.
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The origins of Mexico City date back to 1325, when the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan was founded and later destroyed in 1521 by Spanish conqueror Hernan Cortes. Then the city served as the capital of the Viceroyalty of the New Spain until the outbreak of the Independence War in 1810. The city became the capital of the Mexican Empire in 1821 and of the Mexican Republic in 1823 after the abdication of Agustin de Iturbide. During the Mexico - U.S. war in 1847, the city was invaded by the American army. In 1864 the French invaded Mexico and the emperor Ferdinand Maximilian of Habsburg ruled the country from the Castillo de Chapultepec and ordered to build Avenue of the Empress (today's Paseo de la Reforma promenade). Porfirio Díaz assumed power in 1876 and left an outstanding mark in the city with many european styled buildings such as the Palacio de Bellas Artes and the Palacio Postal.
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Mexico City is ... the Federal District (Distrito Federal in Spanish, and hence the abbreviation D.F. that officially follows the name of the city). The Federal District is coextensive with Mexico City: both are governed by a single institution and are constitutionally considered to be the same entity. This has not always been the case. The Federal District, created in 1824, was integrated by several municipalities, one of which was the municipality of Mexico City. As the city began to grow, it engulfed all other municipalities into one large urban area.
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