It is also one of the most traditional areas of the city, with over 700 religious and secular festivals during the year and an economy based on agriculture and food processing, especially the production of nopal cactus, barbacoa and mole sauce.

[3][4] The terrain is rugged mostly consisting of volcanic peak along with some small flat areas mostly formed in the Cenozoic Era.

[4] City officials have classified the entire borough as a conservation zone, important for its role as an aquifer recharge area as well as its forests.

The natural vegetation is mostly forest with a mix of pine, oyamel fir and holm oak, with some concentrations of Abies religiosa.

Other vegetation include fruit trees such as tejocote (Crataegus pubescens), capulin (Prunus serotona ssp capulli) blackberry (Rubus adenotrichus) and well as various scrubs, grass and flowers.

Depending on conditions oak, cedar, strawberry trees (Arbutus), pirul (Schinus molle), tepozan (Buddleja cordata), nopal cactus and maguey can be found.

[4] Wildlife includes 59 species of mammals such as zacatuche rabbits (Romerolagus diazi), which in danger of extinction, along with coyotes, deer, lynx and moles.

[4] While named after Villa Milpa Alta, the borough is not concentrated on a single community like Tlahuac or Xochimilco but rather is composed of twelve main towns all of which are rural.

[6] Men still hold most of the paying jobs, with most women classed as homemakers, although many of these work in family business, generally for no salary.

[6] The current community struggles to maintain its identity and culture and to prevent being absorbed into the urban sprawl of Mexico City.

[16] Day of the Dead is celebrated in the borough with altars, the cleaning and decorating of gravesites, masses and vigils like many other places in Mexico but it is also celebrated with the release of sky lanterns in communities such as San Agustin Ohtenco, as well as publicly held events such as concerts, the creation of monumental papier-mâché skulls and even Mesoamerican ball games.

Palm Sunday in San Agustin el Alto, the Asunción parish to the main church in Villa Milpa Alta for Good Friday .

The last is the Noche de Luces (Night of Lights) in San Francisco Tecoxpa in late November.

[4] The recorded history of the area begins around 1240 when a Chichimeca group migrated into the Valley of Mexico from the north and founded the Malacachtepec Momozco dominion.

They formed settlements in what is now the borough in places such as Malacatepec Momoxco, Ocotenco, Texcalapa, Tototepec, Tepetlacotanco, Huinantongo and Tlaxcomulco.

[15] This caused many of the indigenous here to abandon their lands and hide in the mountains, making incursions into Spanish held territory to plunder.

[23] Reorganization of the Federal District of Mexico City created the modern borough, with the government in Villa Milpa Alta in 1929.

[5] The pace of urbanization in the borough is slower in Milpa Alta than other outlying areas of the Federal District, but the growth of Mexico City since the mid 20th century has been affecting it.

Both of these are most serious in San Salavador Cuauhtenco, where squatters who have been there for years demand regularization and services and enforcers of environmental laws are threatened by residents.

[8][24] Milpa Alta is officially classed as one of the poorest in the Federal District by income, with 48.6% considered to be below the poverty line.

[5][11] Founded in 1986, the Feria del Nopal is held in Villa Milpa Alta in June with the aim of promoting the consumption of the paddle cactus.

[6] One important processed food in Milpa Alta is the making of barbacoa, sheep meat cooked in a pit oven lined with maguey leaves.

[26] The barbacoa business in the area began in the 1940s and since then has been successful enough to allow many families to send their children to school and become professionals.

[3] The only other industry in Milpa Alta is small handcraft workshops making articles such as leather goods, furniture and textiles.

It is the second of its type in the Federal District of Mexico City, patterned after the successful Fábrica de Artes y Oficios Oriente in Iztapalapa.

[30] Public high schools of the Instituto de Educación Media Superior del Distrito Federal (IEMS) include:[31] The Otilio Montaño Library is in Tlacoyucan.

[32] Public transportation includes thirteen major bus route connecting the borough to Metro Tasqueña, Metro Tlahuac, the Central de Abastos, La Merced Market, Xochimilco and Santa Martha Acatitla, along with 23 smaller routes which are operated by private contractors.

[33] It takes about two hours by public transportation to travel from the center of Mexico City to Villa Milpa Alta.

It can take up to three if traffic is bad, but lately, the subway made close Milpa Alta to the rest of the city via Tecomitl.

[11] For a short time beginning in the late 1980s, Milpa Alta was also served by trolleybuses of Servicio de Transportes Eléctricos, with a route from Tláhuac, but this service lasted only from October 1988[34] to early 1991.