The World Heritage Site of Xochimilco contains what remains of the geography (water, boats, floating gardens) of the Mexica capital.

However, one attestation in the late 16th-century manuscript known as "the Bancroft dialogues" suggests the second vowel was short, so that the true etymology remains uncertain.

[4] Tenochtitlan covered an estimated 8 to 13.5 km2 (3.1 to 5.2 sq mi),[6] situated on the western side of the shallow Lake Texcoco.

[citation needed] The city was connected to the mainland by bridges and causeways leading to the north, south, and west.

[10] Two double aqueducts, each more than 4 km (2.5 mi) long and made of terracotta,[11] provided the city with fresh water from the springs at Chapultepec.

Also, the upper classes and pregnant women washed themselves in a temāzcalli, similar to a sauna bath, which is still used in the south of Mexico.

Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés estimated it was twice the size of the city of Salamanca with about 60,000 people trading daily.

Pochteca could become very rich because they did not pay taxes, but they had to sponsor the ritual feast of Xocotl Huetzi from the wealth that they obtained from their trade expeditions.

The state religion of the Mexica civilization awaited the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy: the wandering tribes would find the destined site for a great city whose location would be signaled by an eagle with a snake in its beak perched atop a cactus (Opuntia), which had grown from the heart of Copil.

Not deterred by the unfavourable terrain, they set about building their city, using the chinampa system (misnamed as "floating gardens") for agriculture and to dry and expand the island.

The small natural island was perpetually enlarged as Tenochtitlan grew to become the largest and most powerful city in Mesoamerica.

Commercial routes were developed that brought goods from places as far as the Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific Ocean and perhaps even the Inca Empire.

[23] After a flood of Lake Texcoco, the city was rebuilt during the rule of Ahuitzotl, which was between 1486 and 1502, in a style that made it one of the grandest ever in Mesoamerica.

One of the few comprehensive academic surveys of Mesoamerican city and town sizes arrived at a population of 212,500 living on 13.5 km2 (5.2 sq mi).

The Spanish leader, Pedro de Alvarado, who was left in charge, worried that the natives planned a surprise attack.

At Vera Cruz, the officer left in charge received a letter from Qualpopoca, the leader of Nueva Almería, asking to become a vassal of the Spaniards.

The outer Indian section, now dubbed San Juan Tenochtitlan, continued to be governed by the previous indigenous elite and was divided into the same subdivisions as before.

Symptoms were often delayed for up to ten days, when the infection would spread throughout the body, causing sores, pain, and high fever.

Despite the extensive damage to the built environment, the site retained symbolic power and legitimacy as the capital of the Aztec empire, which Cortés sought to appropriate.

For a time this ciudad de españoles, the highest rank in the Spanish hierarchy of settlement designation, was called Mexico–Tenochtitlan.

The Spanish established a Europeans-only zone in the center of the city, an area of 13 blocks in each direction of the central plaza, which was the traza.

In the colonial period both San Juan Tenochtitlan and Santiago Tlatelolco retained jurisdiction over settlements on the mainland that they could draw on for labor and tribute demanded by the Spanish, but increasingly those subordinate settlements (sujetos) were able to gain their autonomy with their own rulers and separate relationship with the Spanish rulers.

[43] There are a number of colonial-era pictorial manuscripts dealing with Tenochtitlan–Tlatelolco, which shed light on litigation between Spaniards and indigenous over property.

[45] Anthropologist Susan Kellogg has studied colonial-era inheritance patterns of Nahuas in Mexico City, using Nahuatl- and Spanish-language testaments.

Tenochtitlan's main temple complex, the Templo Mayor, was dismantled and the central district of the Spanish colonial city was constructed on top of it.

The location of the Templo Mayor was rediscovered in the early 20th century, but major excavations did not take place until 1978–1982, after utility workers came across a massive stone disc depicting the nude dismembered body of the moon goddess Coyolxauhqui.

The resulting weight of the structures caused them to sink into the sediment of Lake Texcoco; the ruins now rest at an angle instead of horizontally.

This sculpture was carved around 1470 under the rule of King Axayacatl, the predecessor of Tizoc, and is said to tell the history of the Mexicas and to prophesy the future.

[48] In August 1987, archaeologists discovered a mix of 1,789 human bones five meters (16 ft 5 in) below street level in Mexico City.

[49] The burial dates back to the 1480s and lies at the foot of the main temple in the sacred ceremonial precinct of the Aztec capital.