Welcome to the Aztec Empire!
About 700 years ago, a people called the Mexica (meh-SHEE-kah), who we call the Aztecs, built one of the biggest and most amazing cities in the world, right in the middle of a lake in what is now Mexico.
They grew food on floating gardens, used cocoa beans as money, played a ball game with a rubber ball, and created a calendar carved into a giant stone. Their language, Nahuatl (NAH-wah-tul), is still spoken by more than a million people in Mexico today!
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The Legend of Tenochtitlán
A city built where an eagle landed.
Long ago, the Mexica people wandered for many years looking for a new home. Their god, Huitzilopochtli (weet-seel-oh-POHCH-tlee), told them to watch for a sign: an eagle perched on a cactus, eating a snake. That is where they should build their city.
In the year 1325, they spotted the eagle on a small, swampy island in Lake Texcoco. It didn't look like a great place for a city... but the Aztecs turned it into Tenochtitlán (teh-noch-teet-LAHN), one of the largest cities on Earth!
🇲🇽 Look at the flag of Mexico today: the eagle, the cactus, and the snake are right in the middle!
Explore the city map
Tap each golden dot to discover a part of Tenochtitlán. Visit all 6!
Tap a golden dot!
0 of 6 explored
Tenochtitlán quiz
Aztec Society
Everyone had a place, from the emperor to the farmer.
Aztec society was shaped like a pyramid. A few powerful people were at the top, and most people were at the bottom. Read about each group, then build the pyramid!
Build the social pyramid
Put the groups in order from the top (most powerful) to the bottom.
Aztec kids went to school!
The Aztecs were one of the first peoples in the world where all children went to some kind of school. Noble kids went to the calmecac to learn to be leaders and priests. Commoner kids went to the telpochcalli, "house of youth," to learn skills and how to be warriors.
For fun, people played ullamaliztli, a ball game with a heavy rubber ball. Players could NOT use their hands. They bounced the ball off their hips, trying to get it through a stone hoop high on the wall!
Society quiz
Chinampas: The Floating Gardens
How do you feed 200,000 people in the middle of a lake? You build farmland ON the water!
The Aztecs built chinampas (chee-NAHM-pahs): long, skinny, rectangle-shaped islands in the shallow lake. They're often called "floating gardens," but they didn't really float. They were anchored to the lake bottom.
Farmers drove stakes into the lakebed, wove reeds and branches between them like a fence, and filled the inside with layers of mud and rotting plants. Then they planted willow trees along the edges. The willow roots grew down and held the island in place!
🌱 Chinampas were so rich that farmers could grow up to 7 harvests a year. You can still visit chinampas today in Xochimilco (so-chee-MEEL-koh), in Mexico City!
Build a chinampa!
Follow the steps, just like an Aztec farmer.
Choose crops to plant, then tap the island!
Chinampa quiz
Gods & Calendars
The sun, the rain, and time itself.
The Aztecs believed in many gods who controlled nature. At the center of Tenochtitlán stood the Templo Mayor, a giant pyramid with two temples on top: one for Huitzilopochtli, god of the sun and war, and one for Tlaloc, god of rain.
Match each god to what they controlled
Two calendars, turning together
The Aztecs used two calendars at once: a 365-day sun calendar for farming and seasons, and a 260-day sacred calendar for ceremonies. Like two gears, they turned together. Press spin to see how long it takes for both to line up again!
🗿 The famous Sun Stone (also called the Aztec Calendar Stone) is a giant carved stone about 12 feet across and weighs about 24 tons! It was found buried in Mexico City in 1790.
Calendar quiz
Food, Money & Words
You probably use Aztec words every day!
The Aztecs grew corn (maize), beans, squash, tomatoes, chili peppers, and avocados. Nobles drank xocolatl (sho-KOH-lah-tul), a bitter, foamy chocolate drink, sometimes with chili pepper in it!
Cacao beans were so valuable that the Aztecs used them as money. The giant market at Tlatelolco had tens of thousands of shoppers every day.
🛒 Shop at the Tlatelolco market
You have 20 cacao beans. Your shopping list: 2 tomatoes, 1 avocado, and 1 bundle of chili peppers. Buy exactly what's on the list and don't run out of beans! (Prices are based on a real price list written in 1545.)
Nahuatl words we still use
These English words came from the Aztec language, Nahuatl! Match each Nahuatl word to the English word it became.
The Great Canal Canoe Race
Race through the canals of Tenochtitlán. Steer into the RIGHT answer to paddle faster!
Steer your canoe with ← → (or tap the buttons). Three answer signs float toward you. Steer into the correct answer for a speed boost. Wrong answers slow you down! Beat the rival canoe to the finish line.
Final Project: Build a Chinampa!
The Aztecs built artificial islands on the water to grow food. Now you will build one too.
🧰 Materials
📐 What you're building
🪜 Steps
📝 My Project Journal
Turn it in with Google Docs
Take a photo of your model to add to your doc! This puts your project journal and unit scores into a Google Doc.