Mexico was thoroughly populated when the Spanish arrive in the new world.  Cities large and small dotted the landscape from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico and from well north of Mexico City down to Central America.

The ascendent Aztec civilization, composed of a handful of ethnically distinct groups united by language, an integrated economy, a shared pantheon of gods, and a common origin story, dominates central Mexico. Under the aegis of the all-powerful Mexica, the Aztecs are expanding across the region from their power base in the Valley of Mexico - where modern-day Mexico City sits today.

To the east of the Valley of Mexico, the Huastecs, the Otomi and the Totonacs have been recently incorporated into the Aztec empire, and beyond them the remnants of the once-glorious Mayan civilization waits helpless for what seems like inevitable incorporation into the Aztec sphere. To the south west, the ancient Zapotec and Mixtec peoples find themselves newly under the Aztec yoke as well.

But not everyone has bent the knee. To the west of the Aztec heartland, the mighty Tarascan Empire checks their expansion toward the Pacific ocean. And just outside the Valley of Mexico, the defiant Tlaxcala – close kin to the Mexica – continue to be a thorn in the Aztec’s side.

The Aztecs consider themselves the legitimate successors to the long vanished and mysterious Toltec civilization that once dominated the region from their capital city of Tula just north of the Valley of Mexico. The Toltecs, whoever they were, appeared after the collapse of the glorious and even more mysterious Teotihuacan civilization, whose fabulous city with its monumental pyramids and temples that you can still see today, was already long-abandoned by the time the Spanish arrived.

In the next episode, we’ll take a deep dive into the origins of the Mexica and follow them along their rise to the pinnacle of civilization in the New World.