Mexico City

Mexico City began as Tenochtitlan, founded by the Mexica on islands in Lake Texcoco around 1325. Over the next two centuries it grew to dominate the other city-states of the Valley of Mexico, at the centre of a tribute empire. Hernán Cortés laid siege to it in May 1521, and Cuauhtémoc surrendered that August. The Spanish razed much of the city and rebuilt it on their own plan around the main square, raising the cathedral and the palaces of the viceroy and archbishop over the Aztec ceremonial centre. As capital of New Spain the city spread over the drained lakebed, which leaves it sinking today.

After independence in 1821 it became the capital of independent Mexico, was taken by US troops in 1847 and was dressed up by the Emperor Maximilian, who laid out the avenue now called Paseo de la Reforma. The city had about 500,000 people in 1900. Growth exploded from the 1960s: the metro opened in 1969, and the population more than doubled between 1960 and 1980 to nearly 9 million, spilling into the State of Mexico.

On 19 September 1985 an earthquake struck the city, killing around 10,000 people, and the government's response was widely criticised. On the same date in 2017 another earthquake killed 370 people in central Mexico. In 2016 the Federal District was renamed Mexico City, and in 2017 it adopted its own constitution. In June 2026 the Estadio Azteca hosted the opening match of the World Cup, Mexico against South Africa, making it the first stadium to host three tournaments.

Mexico City is the country's cultural capital. A resident is a chilango, a word once used as an insult and now worn with pride. The city has about 170 museums, among the most of any city in the world, from the National Museum of Anthropology to small house museums, and its walls carry the murals of Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros. UNESCO named it a City of Design in 2017.

Music fills the streets and squares: mariachis wait to be hired in Plaza Garibaldi, the Palacio de Bellas Artes stages opera and folk ballet, and festivals such as Vive Latino draw bands from across Ibero-America. Football is followed with passion — the city's derbies between América, Cruz Azul and Pumas of the national university are the big local rivalries — and lucha libre, masked wrestling, is a weekly spectacle at the Arena México. Mexico City's congress banned traditional bullfighting in 2025.

The calendar is crowded. On the night of 15 September the president gives the Grito of independence from the National Palace before a packed Zócalo; the Day of the Dead brings altars, a huge parade along Paseo de la Reforma and candlelit vigils in old villages such as Mixquic; and in December millions of pilgrims walk to the Basilica of Guadalupe. About four in five residents are Catholic. The city also draws newcomers from across Mexico and abroad, and it is home to the largest population of Americans living outside the United States.

Mexico City proper had about 9.2 million people at the 2020 census, and Greater Mexico City, which takes in 60 municipalities of the State of Mexico and one in Hidalgo, about 21.8 million, making it one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world. The city alone produces about 16 per cent of Mexico's economy: government, finance, media, corporate headquarters, universities and a huge informal sector of street vendors and tianguis, the mobile street markets that set up in different neighbourhoods each day of the week.

The city is divided into sixteen boroughs, from the dense centre to the hills and villages of the south. Wealthier residents cluster in Polanco, Condesa, Roma and the south-west; working-class districts and informal settlements spread to the east and into the State of Mexico, and millions commute long distances by metro, minibus and the newer cable cars and suburban trains.

The pressures are environmental. The soft lakebed is sinking as groundwater is pumped out, which worsens summer flooding, and although air pollution has fallen sharply since the 1990s, ozone remains well above safe limits. Roma and Condesa have seen gentrification and rising rents, sped up by remote work after the COVID-19 pandemic. In April 2026 a new rail line opened from Buenavista station to the Felipe Ángeles airport.

Tacos have been the city's everyday food since the 19th century, and its signature is the taco al pastor, pork marinated in chillies and cooked on a vertical spit, a method brought by Lebanese immigrants. The streets add tlacoyos, thick oval masa cakes stuffed with beans, fava beans or cheese; quesadillas; the guajolota, a tamal in a bread roll; and esquites, corn kernels served in a cup. Stalls and vendors sell them throughout the day.

Barbacoa, meat slow-cooked in an earth oven under maguey leaves, is an old favourite: tacos de barbacoa were the ones most often mentioned in the 19th century. Many neighbourhoods have their own mercado, and La Merced is the largest food market; La Nueva Viga, in the Central de Abastos wholesale complex, is one of the biggest seafood markets in the world. The main meal, the comida, comes in mid-afternoon, and many workers eat a set-price comida corrida in a small fonda.

Pulque, the fermented sap of the maguey, was drunk by the Aztec nobility and priesthood and survives in working-class pulquerías, though beer overtook it in the 20th century. At the other end of the scale, restaurants serve the regional cuisines of all 31 states, and in 2024 seven of the city's restaurants received Michelin stars.