Lake Texcoco was a natural lake within the Anahuac or Valley of Mexico. Lake Texcoco is best known for an island situated on the western side of the lake where the Mexica built the city of Mēxihco Tenōchtitlan, which would later become the capital of the Aztec Empire. After the Spanish conquest, efforts to control flooding led to most of the lake being drained.
Tenochitlan and Lake Texcoco in 1519.
Monument to Enrico Martinez in Mexico City
The Valley of Mexico, sometimes also called Basin of Mexico, is a highlands plateau in central Mexico. Surrounded by mountains and volcanoes, the Valley of Mexico was a centre for several pre-Columbian civilizations including Teotihuacan, the Toltec, and the Aztec Empire. The valley used to contain five interconnected lakes called Lake Zumpango, Lake Xaltocan, Lake Xochimilco, Lake Chalco and the largest, Lake Texcoco, covering about 1,500 square kilometers (580 sq mi) of the valley floor. When the Spaniards arrived in the Valley of Mexico, it had one of the highest population concentrations in the world with about one million people. After the conquest of the Aztec Empire, the Spaniards rebuilt the largest and most dominant city, Mēxihco Tenōchtitlan, renaming it Ciudad de México and over time began to drain the lakes' waters to control flooding.
View of the Valley of Mexico from the neighborhood of San Bernabé Ocotepec, 2022
A Columbian mammoth jaw excavated at Tocuila
Modern-day Cuicuilco
Ceramic art recovered from Tlatilco, c. 1300–800 BC