Mexico City (in Spanish be Ciudad of Mexico City ) is the Capitale Mexico; it is located in the heights of the center of the country at an altitude of 2200 m, surrounded by tops which overhang it with more 5  000 meters. It is often indicated by official name are distrito federal ( are D.F. , federal district) to avoid confusion with the country or the State of Mexico City from which it does not form part besides.

Mexican being already used for the inhabitants of the country, French did not gentilé to designate the inhabitants of Mexico City. In Spanish are used are defeño ( are D.F. ) or be capitalino (capital), owing to the fact that are mexicano (Mexican) is reserved for the country and are mexiquense in the State of Mexico City. The inhabitants of the remainder of the country call them in a pejorative way are [[wikt: chilango chilango]] S.

Introduction

Where the town of Mexico City is today, with 2.200 meters of altitude (average altitude: 2.240 m), extended there is 500 years the Lac Texcoco, on an island of which was built in 1325, Mexico City Tenochtitlán, capital of the empire Aztèque and more big city of the American continent, destroyed and rebuilt by the Spanish after the conquest of 1519-1521.

Of this lake gradually drained there remain practically only the gardens of Xochimilco. The modern city, Mexico City occurred on one of its islands. In the middle of the 19th century, she knew a great modernization.

Today, true Mégapole being stretched on nearly 1.500 km ², the agglomeration of Mexico City became, with nearly 20 million inhabitants - in fast peripheral growth - one to the most populated cities and noisiest of the world. The only town of Mexico City (Federal district) counted 8,6 million inhabitants in 2000). Built on a checkerboard plan facilitating the orientation, the whole of the built agglomeration covers now 1.200 km ² (impressive, in the event of arrival in the plane of night).

Greater human concentration of the world, Mexico City extends as far as the eye can see to the first buttresses from the mountains which encircle it. The city absorbed the agglomerations bordering little by little. Very polluted, it preserves some squares of greenery however, as the Parc of Alameda which the Palacio de is next to Bellas Artes, famous theater.

The town of Mexico City is located in a seismic zone, and moreover more dominated by the famous Volcan, the Popocatépetl (5 452 m), volcano always in activity whose eruption could endanger the agglomeration and its population. The earthquake of September 19th, 1985 which shook the Mexican capital, a magnitude of 8,1 on the scale of Richter, lasted two minutes, two minutes of horror, which made more than 10.000 dead, and of which it still remains of many after-effects, like these buildings given up around the Parc Alameda.

Insurgentes is the largest artery of the city, it lengthens on 40 kilometers, but also Paseo of reformed , the most beautiful avenue of Mexico City, one finds there the Gratte-ciel S with the most innovative architecture of the world. The city extends at the rate/rhythm from flow from the new arrivals (30 000 per month). The building authorities, which must provide well plans of the city, are reduced by it to charter each year a plane to photograph the new districts which leave ground, sometimes in a few days.

The Atmospheric pollution is one of the main issues which worry the authorities of the Mexican capital. Mexico City has the rate of highest Ozone of planet, ozone being the main component of the “smog”, this dirty fog which floats above the great agglomerations and which makes there the air unbreathable. Air above Mexico City east if polluted, that one could observe the fall of migratory birds, fallen from the sky stiff-deaths, asphyxiated. This pollution is the result of an intense motor vehicle traffic - one counts 4 million cars, 27.000 microbus, 92.000 taxis which burn approximately 14 million liters of gasoline each day - and of an industrial activity which made extremely fast great strides (more than 40.000 industrial companies work in the agglomeration of Mexico City, without always respecting the environmental standards).

Service road

  • Mexico City is served by a international Aéroport ( Aeropuerto Internacional Juárez ). In July 2002, the project to build a second airport with Texcoco failed in front of the opposition of the peasants who did not wish to see themselves expropriés of their ground and thus to lose their lifestyle.

  • a effective and subsidized subway serves immense a 207 km length network. Its trains, built in Mexico under license of French and Canadian companies, are modern and fast; a true social life developed there, in-depth, in margin of the “air” life. However, at certain hours and on certain lines, the safety of voyageuses is not assured, which pushed the authorities of the public transport to hold the first coach “with the women and the children” at the rush hours. The 12 lines currently in service will be supplemented by a treizème in 2008.

  • On the model practiced in several cities, a " metrobus" (elevated bus circulating in exclusive right of way) was put in function in 2005 on the Insurgentes avenue. Much less expensive than the subway, because it does not require a such heavy infrastructure, these means of transport is under development full: one second line is in the course of construction.

  • the Every day of the Monday to Friday and the weekend in the event of extreme pollution, circulation is limited. One cannot travel by his car one day per week, according to the last figure of his number plates: 1 and 2, Monday; 3 and 4, Tuesday; etc For this reason the families which have the means of them buy several vehicles with different numbers of plates in order to be able nevertheless to circulate the every day….

Climate

To Mexico City, the hottest period goes from April to June (26°C). The rain season lasts from June to September. The most pleasant months go from October to May.

History

Mexico City was built with the site of Tenochtitlán, the old capital Aztèque. Most of the influence of the current city was immersed under the Lac Texcoco until the 16th century.

The Spanish Conquistador Hernán the Cortes arrived in the area in 1519, but it could not conquer the city before the August 13rd 1521, after long and wild combat which destroyed almost all the Aztec city. The city became the colonial center of the Spanish empire which included/understood also the Filipino and the populeuse city of the American continent.

The independence of the Mexico intervened in 1821. The city was twice controlled directly since the foreigner; by the the United States of America in 1847 and by the France with the beginning of the year 1860 by the unhappy Maximilien de Habsbourg, thorough on the imperial throne of Mexico by Napoleon III, which will be finally shot by the republicans of Benito Juárez on June 19th 1867.

In 1873 the first railway line connects Mexico City to Veracruz.

Recent facts

Between the October 12th and the October 27th, 1968 the Olympic Games of summer were disputed there right before (second) the massacre of Tlatelolco (see below).

In October 2001, the federal government renonça to build a new airport of 400 km ² to Texcoco, important marshy zone close to Mexico City, agricultural lobbys as well as the chiefs (cacic) political buildings being opposed to it violently. Larger than Roissy, this project of 2 billion euros, included/understood 12 tracks and was to be the largest building site ever undertaken in America since the Canal of Panamá. It would have provided work has several thousands of people during her construction. The government hoped to be able to attract funds national and foreign what would have supported its expanding economy; the local communities of which chiefs supported by lobbys which saw of a very evil eye the loss of importance of " the ancien" airport what would have injured enormous interests, usérent of violence at the beginning of June. Peasants and armed groups of Machete S and firearms installed road blocks in the town of San Salvador Atenco and retained as an hostage during several days 19 police officers. It remains that the question of a new airport remains posed, the old airport sufficient more to ensure correctly and in full safety an air traffic in strong expansion.

In 2002, Rudolph Giuliani former mayor of the town of New York was engaged by Andrés Manuel López Obrador, mayor of Mexico City to try to reduce the criminality of the city. Guiliani is known to have reduced criminality when he was mayor and for the policy of Tolerance Zero which he had founded in his city, but without any concrete result the D.F is not New York.

Debris of the Aztec Empire

The November 8th 1519, when Hernan the Cortes, 33 years Spanish captain, enters Tenochtitlan, the Indians want to see in him an envoy of the gods… But the cruel messenger will put at bag the proud city, heart of the Empire Aztèque: on the ruins, it makes build Mexico City where, today still, more than one vestige recalls that this remainder the continuation of the past. Exhumed in 1978 close to the cathedral, the ruins of the Templo Mayor ressucitent the size of Tenochtitlan today. To put them at the day, it was necessary to cut down several buildings and to cut a street. According to the archeologists, the enclosure of Tenochtitlan recovered a surface of 13 km ².

Geography

The city is surrounded by mountains of which Volcan S like the Popocatepetl and the Ixtaccíhuatl. This situation out of basin, worsens the effect of the Pollution, the winds not dispersing the latter satisfactorily.

The construction of the city on a movable ground amplifies the effect of the earthquakes. That of the September 19th 1985, a magnitude of 8,1 degrees on the scale of Richter, made more than 10.000 victims.

The very important presence of motor vehicles coupled with high altitude and the sunny climate do of Mexico City one of the cities in the world where atmospheric pollution is most important. The alternate Circulation and controls it vehicles were installation to cure it partially.

Policy

Following the example Washington, D.C with the the United States, Mexico City is not a State of the federation but a federal territory with specific institutions. Historically, the chief of the government of the district was named by the President of Mexico. A reform of its statutes in 1993 gave him an autonomy with respect to the federal capacity and gives the possibility to its inhabitants of naming its representatives. Contrary to Washington in the USA, Mexico City is represented with the Congrès of the Union under conditions equal to those of the States of the federation.

The legislative power is between the hands of the legislative Assemblée of the federal district and the Sénat of the federal district. The executive is entrusted to the Gouvernement of the federal district directed by the Chief of the government of the federal district, elected with the majority uninominal system with a turn. The capacities are limited than for the States of the federation; the President of Mexico or the Congrès of the Union can, for example, to exert a right of Veto on the decisions of the head of government.

Mexico City is directed by the Partido of Revolución Democrática (of left); in 2006, the party has a relative majority to the Parliament, two of the three seats to the Senate, as well as the post of head of government. After the resignation of Manual Andrés López Obrador the July 29th 2005 in order to launch out in the race to the presidency, the city is directed by a temporary head of government Alejandro Encinas Rodríguez. Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon, elected head of government in 2006, took its functions in 2007.

Administrative divisions

The territory is divided into 16 delegations ( delegaciónes , corresponding to the Arrondissement S of certain metropolises). These delegations themselves are divided into districts ( colonias ), 400 on the whole. The delegations are:

Remarkable sites

  • the Zócalo , whose official name is Plaza of Constitución : this immense very successful place is the historical center of the town of Mexico City, it bears this name (the base) because of a base intended to carry the statue of a historical personality. Obviously, this one could not be given, and the base remained unoccupied. This central place was thus called “base”. It always formed the heart of the city since it constituted already that of Tenochtitlan, then carrying in its center the Teocalli, the principal temple of the Aztec ones. The metropolitan cathedral dominating Zócalo is the largest cathedral of America in dimensions. It was started in 1573 and was only completed 240 years later, in 1813. By this fact, of composite style, it combines, in fact, the styles baroque and Renaissance. Built with materials coming from the large temple Mexica de Tlaloc-Huitzilopochtli, she suffers today from the evil affecting a great number of buildings threatened by depression of the basement.
  • the Palacio Nacional , (National Palate or Palate of the president), also located to him on Zócalo, was built on the site of the palate of Moctezuma II, in 1523 on order of Hernan the Cortes. Sit of the Government, this building imposing, with its 14 cours interior, shelters many artistic treasures of the colonial time but especially epic frescos of the Mexican painter Diego Rivera which, in sixteen years, painted on 450 m ² the history of Mexico. It is since the balcony of the national palate, that the president shouts, a little before midnight all the September 15th, day before national festival, almost the same words as the Hidalgo Father in 1810 in the village of Dolores: “Mexican, Mexico lives! Live the heroes who gave us fatherland and freedom! ”; one does not shout any more “¡ Mueran los gachupines!” (Dead Á Spaniards) nor “¡ Viva el Rey! ”, of the remarks that Hidalgo had shouted well with its balcony of its church with Dolores.
  • the Museo Nacional de Antropología : very famous, it shelters an important collection of priceless treasures coming from archeological sites distributed through all Mexico like some exposures. One finds there objects outstanding of the period prehispanic like, for example, the Aztec calendar out of stone and of Maya paintings of the site of Bonampak. Not to forget for as much, Museo of the ciudad of Mexico City of old architecture, (as the central Post office) with a very beautiful staircase.
  • the Parque of Alameda , located near the Palacio de Bellas Artes is one of the most pleasant parks of Mexico, arranged according to a simple geometrical concept. Approximately 2 km more in the west, last the Paseo of Reformed, an important and elegant boulevard, which open on the Zona Rosa, hot district with its very many hotels, restaurants and nightclubs.
  • the Bosque de Chapultepec (the wood of Chapultepec) is him also along the Paseo of Reforma; it is an immense traversed park of multiple channels with thickets, flowered ponds, gardens, zoological garden and several museums.
  • Coyoacán and San Ángel, these residential old workings in the south of the city offer a particular environment; they was formerly independent cities, absorptive by the megalopolis, always avid of spaces:
    • Coyoacán (there or there are coyotes) was the capital of the Tépanèques, then residence of Hernán the Cortes, “Put it of the Cortes”; it is the district of the artists today. There, two pretty great places face, one with the other, true enclaves, very animated day like night. One of them, the Plaza Hidalgo , still anchored in the 16th century, very girdled of a chain of restaurants, gravers, bars and coffees literary, is the true heart. The weekend proceeds there a very animated artisanal market and stocked well; the Mexico City whole likes to be found there. Coyoacán protects two more “magic” villas:
      • the “ Put Museo of Leon Trotski ”. Condemned to death in absentia in 1937, Trotski was lodged by Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. One to hardly imagine there that a man of such a notoriety could live in a so modest house. There, a rudimentary kitchenette, a sinister bathroom, a room with disasters impacts of Stalinist balls dated 1940, an office with a typewriter and a multitude of books seem to await the return of the revolutionist. Always it is that Trotski fell the August 20th 1940 under the ice axe from the hired killer Ramón Mercader. Its ashes rest in the garden of its old residence.
      • Some streets further, the Caza azul, the “ blue house ” of Frida Kahlo. It was born there; she died there the July 13rd 1954. Responsible for history, the “ caza azul ” recalls in a way as intimate as moving the life by joys and sufferings of this great painter. There too, its bed with mirror, its wheelchair, its rest, its collections, its letters, its books and even its diary open to the last page seem to await its return.
    • San Ángel and the Museo LED Carmen , convent decorated with beautiful ceramics in contrast, one sees there the rudimentary cells of the Carmelite nuns and the skeletal mummies of the last monks buried in the cellars; whereas in, Iglesia neighbor of fraiches young girls fifteen year old, equipped like princesses in a blue, pink decoration and gold are blessed, as the tradition requires it, in the middle of white arums. At side, on Plaza San Jacinto, little sister of Montmartre, the spare-time painters invaded all the gardens.
  • “ Museo Estudio Diego Rivera ”, which is profiled at the top of the small sinuous streets, consists of two twin cubes connected to each other by a footbridge by which Frida brought its meals to her husband. Cubic pink for Diego and blue Cube for Frida. Realized, in 1932, by Juan O' Gorman, in the style of the Bauhaus, it will name them the “machines to be lived”. There too all remained such as it is: brushes, rest, wheelchair, books and letters… there Frida, among more than 70 self-portraits realized celebrates it table “both Frida”.
  • More in the south, the Ciudad Universitaria of the autonomous National university of Mexico (UNAM), vastness accommodating a little less 250.000 students.
  • Even more in the south, the gardens of flowers of Xochimilco, splendid floating gardens (see below).
  • Not far from downtown area of Mexico City finds place musical, famous universally, Plaza Garibaldi - located at 300 measure in the north of Palacio de Bellas Artes - truth centers life night of capital Mexican, on which the Mariachi S meet to offer their music to which wants to listen to it, and to pay. They are not so expensive and, for some peso S sing all the songs of the world to the many tourists of passage. In truth, to spend one moment in this magic place is a quite happy experiment. There are many restaurants all around the place, of which much offers to the amateurs typical culinary specialities of certain areas of Mexico.
  • the Palacio de Bellas Artes , majestic building, carried out almost completely in Carrara marble, was built, at the beginning of the 20th century, on the site occupied formerly by the convent Santa Isabel, with an aim of offering to the country a National theater. One is surprised by the difference of the styles used, as well outside as inside. That is due to the thirty years which its construction lasted. The outside, which has some aspects Art nouveau, was built according to the preliminary draft of the Italian architect Adamo Boari (1904). The interior, carried out in 1932 by Federico Mariscal, has a spectacular decoration Art déco, realized with Paris by the famous house Edgar Brandt. But, which draws the attention is that the two architects used decorative elements of the pre-Hispanic culture for the decoration of the building (masks of warriors, tigers, eagles, divinities Maya and snakes). Among all these impressive works of art, one must still mention the famous mural decorations carried out by Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Rufino Tamayo and Jorge González Camarena, especially conceived by the artists for the place where they are presented. Since its inauguration, settled in the building, in addition to the Theater and its dependences, the National museum of visual arts and its gallery of temporary exhibitions, the Museum of the book, a library and a restaurant.
  • N.D. of Guadalupe is, after the Basilique Saint-Pierre of Rome, the second monument Catholique more visited in the world. It receives approximately 14 million visitors each year! The December 12th 2005 was celebrated the 475e birthday of the appearance of the “ Guadalupana ”, the “virgin brown” of Guadeloupe, symbol of Mexican Catholicism. But, each year, coming from all Mexico, with foot, in the bicycle, in the car, of the million pilgrims find themselves on the square of the basilica to sing canticles with the “brown virgin”, prosterner in front of its image or to present offerings to him (medals, posters, ex-votos…) to obtain some miracle in their favor. Mexico City knows all the week of December 12th, of immense congestions. In the Avenue Reformed, paintings, sculptures, drawings… are exposed in its honor. More than 6 million pilgrims converge there where the Brown Virgin “ Nuestra Señora, Reina of Mexico City Imperatriz de América ” appeared there, in 1531 with the shepherd Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin ( Eagle-which-Likes It ) (1474 - 1548).
  • Tlatelolco , district of Mexico City, whose most important site is the Place of the Three-Cultures . Primary market of the old Aztec capital Tenochtitlan, probably one of vastest of Americas and perhaps of the world. Last place of the Aztec resistance led by Cuauhtemoc, forty thousand people on the whole, there were massacred with all their family, the August 13rd 1521. In 1967, the Traité of Tlatelolco founded a free zone of nuclear weapons in Latin America and to the the Antilles. Since all the countries of the area signed and ratified this treaty. The October 2nd 1968, the place was the theater of the second massacre of Tlatelolco, in which more than three hundred students protesters were killed by the army and the police force.
  • Xochimilco and its gardens of flowers , or Chinampa S, which is famous in the whole world; it is here that at the time Aztec a whole population of market-gardeners lived who fed the capital out of fruits, vegetables and flowers. At that time these channels arrived to the heart even of Mexico City and were the principal means of routing of all kinds of goods. The importance of these channels as well for the trade as to drain water of the city, was thus capital. The floating gardens, that one can see nowadays, are to some extent the remainders of installations of the artificial islands ( chinampas ) that the Aztec ones had carried out on the lagoon of the Lac Texcocoet. After the arrival of Spanish one there with high beautiful the Convent of San Bernardino His, owner of the city. Close to San Bernardino, pretty Capilla del Rosario goes back to 1768, covered with stucco and ceramics of Puebla. The every day is held the traditional flower market of Madreselva. Vacation resort, Xochimilco became, gradually, for the Mexicans the place of a very run Sunday walk. One comes there with the family to find on the few 150 flat-bottomed multicoloured boats ( will trajinera ) - richly decorated, christened soft female first names: Lupita, Carmen, Adelita etc - which, between these small islands enclosed in a canal system, crossing poplars and willows, whirl in the middle of the floating markets and of the orchestras of Mariachi S.

Surroundings of Mexico City

  • El Rosario , this forest located in the mountains of the West, shelters, each year, the migration of approximately 120 million butterflies monarchs come from the distance Canada, located to 5.000 km from there. This site is identified only since 1976 following the discovery of the first colony of hibernation of the butterflies monarchs by Kenneth Brugger and his Mexican wife Cathy Aguadola. This discovery gave place to the publication of an article in the prestigious review National Geographic. This area is since then protected, but the population of the butterflies is seriously endangered by the deforestation, the peasants living in the neighborhoods being carpenters since generations (the reconversion on tourist projects runs up against the short period during which the butterflies are present). Moreover, the total warming of planet seems to disturb the migration, as well as the presence of great zones subjected to the Pesticide S or of corn culture Transgénique on the course (plants whose the butterflies are nourished not pushing more in these areas).

  • Taxco , 200km in the south, it is the city of the Money (old mines of extraction); colonial jewel, admirably preserved, built with mountainside with its paved streets and its houses of colonial Style which gives him an incomparable charm. The work of the money is omnipresent in many gravers exposing of mirific objects and jewels of this metal. Is held there even once per annum: “The large fair of the money”.

  • Teotihuacán (Where the men become gods), with 50 kilometers in the north of Mexico City, was set up then given up by badly known people (the Olmèque S?). The site was occupied as of 600 av. J. - C.. The monumental city, set up towards 200 av. J. - C., reached the surface of 20 km ². What made of it largest Cité- State méso-American while its population exceeded the 200.000 inhabitants, quantifies also enormous for the time. To start with the museum (very complete), with the entry of the site, then to traverse the Alley of Dead and to admire the two pyramids of the Moon and the Sun.

  • Tula with 70km is the old capital of Toltèques. A splendid Aztec calendar and the palate of Chac Mool was preserved there.

  • Puebla (120km of Mexico City): cathedral (Immaculate Conception), church (Santo Domingo), convent (Santa Monica), university. In its surroundings: Cholula (15km): old city précolombienne.

Famous characters

Personalities born in Mexico City

Many famous Mexicans were born in the capital:

Personalities died in Mexico City

Other personalities

Here a list of people who lived part of their life in Mexico City:

  • Auguste de Rambaud, former Police chief of the wars.

  • Leonora Carrington, painter and English novelist.

Universities

Twinnings and partnerships

See too

External bonds

  • Corazón de ChiapasSite of the State of Chiapas
  • Official site of the town of Tourist Mexico City
  • Official site of Mexico City

Sources

  • Mexico City today: more the big city of the world… /Claude Bataillon, Louis Panabière/Publication: Paris: Publisud, 1988/245 p.: ill., couv. ill. in coul. /Collection: Urbasud, ISSN 0991-5907

Beats-smg: Mechėks Simple: Mexico City City

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