The Aztec Empire
Learn about the Aztec Empire — the Mesoamerican civilization that built Tenochtitlán, a city of 200,000 on a lake, with floating gardens and monumental pyramids.
The Aztec Empire (1428–1521 CE) was the dominant power in Mesoamerica on the eve of European contact. From their island capital of Tenochtitlán — built on Lake Texcoco in the Valley of Mexico — the Aztecs (or more properly, the Mexica) controlled a tributary empire of millions of people through a combination of military conquest, political alliances, and religious ideology.
Tenochtitlán was one of the great cities of the world. With a population of perhaps 200,000–300,000, it was larger than any city in contemporary Europe. Causeways connected the island to the mainland. Aqueducts delivered fresh water. Chinampas — the famous "floating gardens" — produced food year-round. Markets rivaled any in the Old World; the Spanish conquistador Bernal Díaz described the great marketplace of Tlatelolco with astonishment, comparing it favorably to anything he had seen in Europe.
Aztec civilization was deeply shaped by religion. The belief that the sun required human blood to continue its journey across the sky drove a system of ritual sacrifice that intensified as the empire expanded. This practice, while sensationalized by European accounts, was embedded in a sophisticated cosmological system that connected war, agriculture, time, and the fate of the universe. The empire's rapid collapse in 1519–1521 was the result of Spanish military technology, devastating epidemic disease, and the willingness of conquered peoples to ally against their Aztec overlords.