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Lake Texcoco (; ) was a natural Salt lake lake within the Anahuac or Valley of Mexico. Lake Texcoco is best known for an island situated on the western side of the lake where the Mexica built the city of Tenochtitlan, which would later become the capital of the Aztec Empire. After the Spanish conquest, efforts to control flooding led to most of the lake being drained.
The entire lake basin is now almost completely occupied by Mexico City, the capital of the present-day nation of Mexico. Drainage of the lake has led to serious ecological and human consequences. The local climate and water availability have changed considerably, contributing to water scarcity in the area; subsequent Overdrafting leads to land subsidence under much of the city. Native species endemic to the lake region, such as the axolotl, have become severely endangered or extinct due to ecosystem change.
Agriculture around the lake began about 7,000 years ago,Niederberger (1979) with humans following the patterns of periodic inundations of the lake.
Several villages appeared on the northeast side of the lake between 1700 and 1250 BC. By 1250 BC the identifying signs of the Tlatilco culture, including more complex settlements and a stratified social structure, are seen around the lake. By roughly 800 BC Cuicuilco had eclipsed the Tlatilco cultural centers and was the major power in the Valley of Mexico during the next 200 years when its famous conical pyramid was built. The Xitle volcano destroyed Cuicuilco around AD 30, a destruction that may have given rise to Teotihuacan.
After the fall of Teotihuacan, AD 600–800, several other city states appeared around the lake, including Xoloc, Azcapotzalco, Tlacopan, Coyohuacan, Culhuacán, Chimalpa, and Chimalhuacán – mainly from Toltec and Chichimeca influence. None of these predominated and they coexisted more or less in peace for several centuries. This time was described as a Golden age in Aztec chronicles. By the year 1300, however, the Tepanec from Azcapotzalco were beginning to dominate the area.
Tenochtitlan was founded on an islet in the western part of the lake in the year 1325. Around it, the created a large artificial island using a system similar to the creation of . To overcome the problems of drinking water, the Aztecs built a system of to separate the salty waters of the lake from the rain water of the . It also permitted them to control the level of the lake. The city also had an inner system of channels that helped to control the water.
The Aztec ruler Ahuitzotl attempted to build an aqueduct that would take fresh water from the mainland to the lakes surrounding the Tenochtitlan city. The aqueduct failed, and the city suffered a major flood in 1502.
During Hernán Cortés's siege of Tenochtitlan in 1521, the dams were destroyed, and never rebuilt, so became a big problem for the new Mexico City built over Tenochtitlan.
The ecological consequences of the draining were enormous. Parts of the valleys were turned semi-arid, and even today Mexico City suffers from lack of water. Due to overdrafting that is depleting the aquifer beneath the city, Mexico City is estimated to have sunk 10 meters (33 feet) in the last century. Furthermore, because soft lake sediments underlie most of Mexico City, the city has proven vulnerable to soil liquefaction during earthquakes, most notably in the 1985 earthquake when hundreds of buildings collapsed and thousands of people died.
The term "Texcoco Lake" now refers only to a big area surrounded by east of Mexico City, which covers part of the ancient lake bed. Also there are small remnants of the lakes of Lake Xochimilco, Lake Chalco, and Lake Zumpango.
Several species indigenous to the lake are now extinct or endangered (e.g. ).
The modern Texcoco Lake has a high concentration of salts and its waters are evaporated for their processing. A Mexican company, "Sosa Texcoco S.A." has an solar evaporator known as El Caracol.
Land reclamation of the lakebed was part of Mexico's attempts at development in the twentieth century.Matthew Vitz, "'The Land with which we struggle': Land Reclamation, Revolution, and Development in Mexico's Lake Texcoco Basin, 1910-1950". Hispanic American Historical Review 92, no. 1 (2012): 41-71.
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