History: What is the origin of Mexico City?

In February 1824 the first Constitution of independent Mexico created the Federal District (DF). In January 2016 a constitutional reform granted the official name of Mexico City to the country's capital.

History: What is the origin of Mexico City?
Mexico City. Photo by Oscar Reygo / Unsplash

Mexico City is the most important urban area of the Mexican Republic, it is the main social, cultural, economic, and political center, it is made up of 16 municipalities, it has 9 million 209 thousand 944 inhabitants and its surface area is approximately 1,495 km2.

As part of its historical background that was key to its conformation first as a Federal District, the foundation of the New Spain that was established in the archaeological zone Mexico-Tenochtitlan, later in 1823 it officially became the First Mexican Empire.

On November 18, 1824, Congress approved the creation of the Federal District, naming the current CDMX as the capital of the country during the promulgation of the first Mexican Federal Constitution to house the Judicial, Legislative and Executive powers.

Article 50, section 28 of the Federal Constitution of the United Mexican States of 1824 established: "To choose a place to serve as residence to the supreme powers of the federation and to exercise in its district the attributions of the legislative power of a state", for that reason the Plaza de la Constitución in the capital's Zócalo was chosen as the center and by orders of the first president, Guadalupe Victoria, said decree was made public.

Previously the Mexico City had been the capital of the State of Mexico, but in 1827 the local legislature named Texcoco as its capital. The Federal Constitution did not determine exactly what its city council structure would be.

The capital of the country was the seat of different political phenomena that were generated by the society based on the criteria of the Central or Federal Republic or the contrast of ideologies in its form of government and territory, for example, in the Superior Order of February 20, 1837, in the Conservative Constitutional Law of 1836 the Federal District was suppressed and was in charge of the Department of Mexico under the Centralist regime.

In 1846, it once again took the form established by the Federal Constitution of 1824, thanks to the government that called itself "Libertador".

One of the most relevant changes that took place for the Federal District was during the government of Antonio López de Santa Anna with the decree of February 16, 1854, in which he expanded the territory of the city and established its limits, to the north with the town of San Cristóbal Ecatepec; to the northwest with Tlalnepantla; its boundary to the west was Los Remedios, Santa Fe, and San Bartolo, to the east with Mixcoac, Huixquilucan, San Angel and Coyoacan; to the south with Tlalpan, Xochimilco, Tepepan and Iztapalapa and to the west with Peñon Viejo.