One of the largest squares in the world, laid out on the ceremonial centre of Tenochtitlan, with a cathedral built from its stones.
Properly the Plaza de la Constitución, and universally the Zócalo — a word meaning plinth, after the base of a monument to independence that was begun here in the 1840s and never built on. The plinth sat empty for decades until it was removed, and the name stuck.
At around 240 by 240 metres it is one of the largest city squares in the world.
What was here before
This is the ceremonial centre of Tenochtitlan. The Templo Mayor stood at the north-east corner, the palace of Moctezuma where the National Palace now is, and the whole complex sat on an island in Lake Texcoco, reached by causeways.
After the conquest in 1521, Cortés ordered the Aztec city demolished and the Spanish city built on the same spot with the same stones. That is not a metaphor — the cathedral’s foundations use masonry from the temple precinct, and you can see carved Aztec blocks in the fabric of buildings around the square.
The Metropolitan Cathedral
The largest cathedral in the Americas, begun in 1573 and finished in 1813 — 240 years, which is why it runs through Renaissance, Baroque and Neoclassical in one building.
Two Baroque bell towers, a Neoclassical dome by Manuel Tolsá, and inside the Altar of the Kings, a gilded Churrigueresque retablo of extraordinary density.
It is sinking. The whole city is, but the cathedral has done so unevenly, and the floor slopes visibly — a plumb line hung from the dome in the nave shows the deviation. A major engineering intervention through the 1990s injected the subsoil and stabilised the differential settlement, and the building is now considered secure. The slope remains.
The square today
Free and open at all hours. It is used constantly — protests, concerts, ice rinks in December, enormous Day of the Dead installations, and a great many people simply crossing it.
The flag at the centre is one of the largest in the country and is raised and lowered daily with ceremony.
Aztec dancers — concheros — perform on the north side most days with drums, feathered headdresses and copal smoke. It is a genuine practice as well as a performance.
Around the square
Palacio Nacional on the east side, with the Rivera murals.
Templo Mayor at the north-east corner — the excavated Aztec temple, found by accident in 1978.
Nacional Monte de Piedad, the national pawnshop, founded 1775 and still operating, on the site of Moctezuma’s palace.
The Gran Hotel Ciudad de México on the south side has a Tiffany stained-glass ceiling of 1908 in its atrium and a rooftop terrace with the best view over the square. You can go up for a drink.
Practicalities
Metro Line 2 to Zócalo surfaces directly on the square.
Busy, safe and heavily policed. Ordinary care with pockets in crowds.
More Landmarks
Palacio de Bellas Artes
An Art Nouveau exterior around an Art Deco interior, with murals by Rivera, Orozco and Siqueiros and a Tiffany glass curtain.
Castillo de Chapultepec
The only royal castle in the Americas, on a hill that was sacred to the Aztecs, holding the national history museum.
Torre Latinoamericana
A 1956 skyscraper on the soft bed of a drained lake in an earthquake zone, which is still standing because of how it was built.