Tenochtitlan - Modern Mexico City

Tenochtitlan was a city state that was founded in 1325, and became the Aztec capital of Mesoamerica. It became the largest city in the pre columbian world, spanning 13.5 kilometers. The city plan for Tenochtitlan was a division into four quadrants - similar to other Mesoamerican cities which relied on the concept of the axis mundi and cosmological order to design their cities. Those 4 quadrants were further divided into 20 districts. The streets were large to accommodate the massive city and its population. Each district even had its own marketplace, with the largest marketplace facilitating up to 60,000 traders a day! 

The founding of Tenochtitlan was based on the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy predicting that the location of the next great capital would have an eagle eating a snake, perched upon a cactus. The Aztecs saw this vision and the creation of the next great city began. This important vision still exists on the Mexican coat of arms. Clearly, the creation and founding of Tenochtitlan was a very important moment in Mexican history, making it a desirable location to build the modern capital of Mexico - Mexico City.

In 1521, Tenochtitlan was captured and colonized by Spanish settlers, and turned into the modern day Mexico city, still a very large capital of Mexico. Cortes and his men were astonished at the sheer size and beauty of the Pre Columbian city, and made plans to destroy it, even convincing some natives to aid him in the deconstruct the powerful city. Cortes erased all of the Aztec culture by replacing temples with catholic churches and renaming the city Mexico. Mexico city is quite large today, spreading out over 1,485 square kilometers, much larger than the original Tenochtitlan.

I believe that the Spanish colonized Tenochtitlan into Mexico City because at the time, it was seen as the most powerful and largest cities in the Aztec civilization. It also harbored power and status from the fulfilled ancient prophecy, which, again, is immortalized in the Mexican Coat of Arms. Cortes and his men saw the city and envisioned the magnificent transformation into a modern day Spanish city. Was the destruction of the city worth it to create what is now a very large and powerful capital? In my opinion, no. Mexico city is now much larger than the original Tenochtitlan, meaning that the Spanish could have chosen a spot that was already clear and empty for them to build upon. The effort needed to crush temples and other religious buildings and then rebuild churches and modern housing upon them would have been massive - and probably would have taken much less time and effort to rebuild on an uninhabited space in the first place.