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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A park of more than 680 hectares west of the centre, around the hill once sacred to the Mexica. Its first section holds Chapultepec Castle, the National Museum of Anthropology, the Museo Tamayo, the Museum of Modern Art, a zoo and boating lakes, with woods, monuments and paths.

An art museum founded by Carlos Slim and named after his late wife, in a building by Fernando Romero at Plaza Carso, opened in 2011 and clad in 16,000 hexagonal aluminium tiles. Six floors show Mexican and European art, from Old Masters to one of the largest collections of Rodin sculpture outside France.