The Aztecs were a Mesoamerican people of central Mexico in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. They were a civilization with a rich cultural heritage whose capital, Tenochtitlan, rivaled the greatest cities of Europe in size and grandeur.
The nucleus of the Aztec Empire was the Valley of Mexico, where the capital of the Aztec Triple Alliance was built upon raised islets in Lake Texcoco. After the 1521 conquest of Tenochtitlan by Spanish forces and their allies which brought about the effective end of Aztec dominion, the Spanish founded the new settlement of Mexico City on the site of the now-ruined Aztec capital. The greater metropolitan area of Mexico City now covers much of the Valley of Mexico and the now-drained Lake of Texcoco.
Aztec culture had complex mythological and religious traditions. The most alarming aspect of the Aztec culture was the practice of human sacrifice, which was known throughout Mesoamerica prior to the Spanish conquest. A hegemonic power, the Aztecs sacrificed human beings on a massive scale in bloody religious rituals, enslaved subject peoples, and, by Spanish accounts, practiced cannibalism. Spanish invaders, led by Hernán Cortés, sought both to claim the new lands and resources for the Spanish Crown and to promulgate Christianity, and demanded that local native allies forswear human sacrifice and cannibalism. Some Aztecs also anticipated the return of the white-skinned god Quetzalcoatl from the east, an expectation which may have contributed to the success of the militarily overmatched Spanish forces.
