City of the day: Mexico City

Mexico City is the capital and largest city in Mexico. Almost 9 million people live there, and here are my three highlights:

1) The Templo Mayor was one of the main temples of the Aztecs in their capital city of Tenochtitlan, which is now Mexico City. The temple was called the huey teocalli in the Nahuatl language and dedicated simultaneously to two gods, Huitzilopochtli, god of war and Tlaloc, god of rain and agriculture, each of which had a shrine at the top of the pyramid with separate staircases. The site is part of the Historic Centre of Mexico City, which was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1987.

2) El Ángel de la Independencia ("The Angel of Independence"), most commonly known by the shortened name El Ángel and officially known as Columna de la Independencia, is a victory column located on a roundabout over Paseo de la Reforma in downtown Mexico City. El Ángel was built to commemorate the centennial of the beginning of Mexico's War of Independence, celebrated in 1910. In later years it was made into a mausoleum for the most important heroes of that war. It is one of the most recognizable landmarks in Mexico City, and it has become a focal point for both celebration or protest.

3) The National Palace, or Palacio Nacional in Spanish), is the seat of the federal executive in Mexico. It is located on Mexico City's main square, the Plaza de la Constitución (El Zócalo). This site has been a palace for the ruling class of Mexico since the Aztec empire, and much of the current palace's building materials are from the original one that belonged to Moctezuma II.

This is part 9 out of a series of 50. Next city tomorrow: Moscow.