Mexico Travel Guide 2026

Historical Heritage

Mexico's history is one of the longest and most complex in the Americas, stretching from the first human inhabitants crossing from Asia 15,000 years ago to a modern nation of 130 million navigating democracy and cartel violence simultaneously. The Olmec — Mesoamerica's 'mother culture' — flourished from 1500 BC, while the Maya built one of the ancient world's most sophisticated civilisations, with advanced mathematics, astronomy, and writing systems, in the Yucatán and southern highlands from 2000 BC to the Spanish conquest. Teotihuacan near modern Mexico City was, at its peak in 500 AD, the sixth largest city in the world, its Avenue of the Dead lined with the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon. The Aztec (Mexica) empire, with its capital Tenochtitlán on an island in Lake Texcoco (now Mexico City), was the most powerful state in Mesoamerica when Hernán Cortés arrived in 1519. The Spanish conquest (1519–1521) was one of history's most consequential — European disease killed up to 90% of the indigenous population, and three centuries of colonial rule fused Spanish and indigenous cultures into something entirely new. Independence came in 1821 after an eleven-year struggle, and the 19th century brought further upheaval — war with the USA (losing Texas, California, and New Mexico), French invasion, and the liberal reform of Benito Juárez. The Revolution of 1910–1920 — Zapata, Villa, and Madero — produced the world's first social revolutionary constitution. Today Mexico's ancient ruins, colonial cities, beaches, and cuisine (a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage) make it Latin America's most visited country.