During that time, it returned one deputy to the Chamber of Deputies for each three-year legislative session by means of the first-past-the-post system, electing its first in the 1979 mid-terms and its last in the 1994 general election.

Votes cast in the district also counted towards the calculation of proportional representation ("plurinominal") deputies elected from the country's electoral regions.

[1][2] The 31st to 40th districts were abolished in the Federal Electoral Institute's 1996 redistricting process because the capital's population no longer warranted that number of seats in Congress.

[3] The districting scheme in force from 1978 to 1996 was the result of the 1977 electoral reforms, which increased the number of single-member seats in the Chamber of Deputies from 196 to 300.

[4] The 38th district covered the whole of the borough of Magdalena Contreras and a portion of Álvaro Obregón.