Explore Mexico City

The main square of Mexico City, officially Plaza de la Constitución, laid out on the centre of the Mexica capital Tenochtitlan. About 240 metres across, it is framed by the Metropolitan Cathedral, the National Palace and the city government buildings, with a giant flag at its centre; it hosts parades, concerts and gatherings.

The cathedral on the north side of the Zócalo, built in stages from 1573 to 1813 over part of the Mexica sacred precinct. Its facade mixes Renaissance, Baroque and Neoclassical work; inside are the gilded Altar of the Kings, sixteen chapels and two organs, and the adjoining Metropolitan Tabernacle.

The seat of Mexico's federal executive on the east side of the Zócalo, built from 1522 on the site of Moctezuma's palace. Its main staircase and courtyard corridors carry Diego Rivera's murals of the history of Mexico, painted between 1929 and 1951; visits depend on access granted by the presidency.

The excavated remains of the main temple of Tenochtitlan, the Mexica capital, beside the Zócalo, dedicated to Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc. Walkways cross the layers of the twin pyramid, rebuilt seven times, and the site museum holds the finds, including the Coyolxauhqui stone found here in 1978.

A former Jesuit college in the historic centre, rebuilt in the early 18th century around three courtyards and later the National Preparatory School. Its walls carry the first murals of the Mexican muralist movement, by José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros and others; it is now a museum with exhibitions.

An 18th-century palace on Calle Madero whose facade is covered in blue and white Puebla tiles, built for the Counts of the Orizaba Valley. Since 1919 it has housed a Sanborns restaurant and shop; its covered courtyard and a mural by José Clemente Orozco on the staircase can be seen inside.

Mexico's national collection of Mexican art from the 16th century to 1954, in the former Palace of Communications on Calle Tacuba, built in 1904–11 by Silvio Contri. Its galleries run from colonial religious painting to José María Velasco's landscapes and works by Rivera and Kahlo; Tolsá's statue of Charles IV stands in front.

The main post office of Mexico City, opposite the Palacio de Bellas Artes, designed by Adamo Boari and opened in 1907. Behind its stone facade in Venetian Gothic and Plateresque styles is a hall with bronze and marble staircases and windows, still in use as a post office, with a postal museum upstairs.

Mexico's national theatre and art museum beside the Alameda Central, begun in 1904 by Adamo Boari and finished in 1934 with an Art Deco interior. Its marble exterior and tiled domes enclose a theatre with a Tiffany glass curtain and galleries with murals by Rivera, Orozco, Siqueiros and Tamayo.

A square north of the Palacio de Bellas Artes where mariachi bands in charro suits gather, above all in the evening, and play songs on request. Cantinas and restaurants line it, and the Museum of Tequila and Mezcal stands on one side.

A museum on Plaza Garibaldi, opened in 2010, on the history and making of tequila and mezcal, from the agave fields to distillation. Its rooms show tools, bottles and labels, and the visit ends with a tasting; the roof terrace looks over the square where mariachi bands play.

The oldest public park in the Americas, created in 1592 on the western edge of the historic centre beside the Palacio de Bellas Artes. Its paths between trees lead to fountains, statues and the white marble Hemiciclo a Juárez, built in 1910 in memory of President Benito Juárez.

An indoor arena in Colonia Doctores, completed in 1956 for professional wrestling and seating about 16,500. The Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre stages lucha libre here several nights a week, with masked wrestlers; it was also the boxing venue of the 1968 Olympics.

A domed arch on Plaza de la República, built in 1933–38 from the steel frame of an unfinished legislative palace and dedicated to the Mexican Revolution. Its pillars hold the remains of revolutionary leaders; a glass lift rises to a viewing terrace under the dome, and the National Museum of the Revolution lies beneath.

A victory column on a roundabout of Paseo de la Reforma, inaugurated in 1910 for the centenary of the War of Independence and topped by a gilded bronze winged Victory. Its base holds a mausoleum with the remains of independence leaders, and the monument is where crowds gather to celebrate.

A museum of 20th-century Mexican art in Chapultepec Park, opened in 1964 in two round glass-walled buildings by Pedro Ramírez Vázquez and Rafael Mijares. The collection includes Frida Kahlo's The Two Fridas and works by Rivera, Siqueiros, Tamayo, Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo, with a sculpture garden.

A museum of contemporary art in Chapultepec Park, founded by the painter Rufino Tamayo and his wife Olga and opened in 1981 in a terraced concrete building by Teodoro González de León and Abraham Zabludovsky. It shows Tamayo's collection of international modern art and changing exhibitions.

A palace on Chapultepec Hill, begun in 1785 as a viceroy's summer house and later a military academy, the residence of Emperor Maximilian and Empress Carlota, and of Mexico's presidents. Since 1939 it has housed the National Museum of History, with furnished imperial rooms, murals and terraces over the city.

Mexico's national museum of archaeology and ethnography, opened in 1964 in Chapultepec Park in a building by Pedro Ramírez Vázquez. Its 22 halls cover the cultures of ancient Mexico, from Teotihuacan and the Maya to the Mexica, whose Sun Stone stands in the Mexica hall, and the country's living Indigenous peoples.

The shrine at the foot of Tepeyac hill where, by tradition, the Virgin appeared to Juan Diego in 1531. The round basilica by Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, consecrated in 1976, holds the cloak bearing her image; beside it stand the old basilica of 1709, chapels and a path up the hill.