5 Unusual Facts About Mexico City

Mexico City is sinking

Mexico means “place on the moon.” The reason for this is that the Aztec city that was located exactly on the site of Mexico City (Tenochtitlan) looked just like the moon.

As Tenochtitlan was situated on the lake, which the Spaniards after the conquest drained, today’s Mexico City is a city that is constantly sinking, reducing its elevation level, so the center of the city in the last 100 years sank as much as 12 m.

Biggest church in Latin America

On the north side of the square Zocalo is the magnificent Cathedral of La Metropolitana, the largest church in Latin America. La Metropolitana was built in the Spanish baroque style with two neoclassical tower 64 m high with as many as 18 bells.

It was built on the site of the first Catholic church that was built after the Spanish invaders conquered Tenochtitlan, the city of Astecs.

In 1573, that church was demolished and in the same place began construction of the cathedral, which was fully completed 1813.

The tallest building in Latin America

La Torre Mayor in Mexico City, is the tallest building in Latin America, which is 225 meters high. Skyscraper La Torre Mayor is office building which has a total of 59 floors of which 43 floors with offices, 29 elevators, helipad…

Also has 4 floors underground and 9 floors above ground with garages, and on those 13 level has enough space for parking of 2,000 cars. In the magnificent La Torre Mayor there are shops, restaurants, bars, florist, bank, gift shops, travel agencies, delivery service, cleaning and everything else you need.

Earthquake in 1985

On September 19 1985, Mexico City hit earthquake with power of 8.1 on the Richter scale, which killed about 30,000 people and an additional 150 000 left homeless.

It happened in the morning when people go to work, destroyed parts of the mountains crashed on the roads and buried cars. The damage done in three minutes was about 4 billion US dollars.

The highest number of taxi drivers in the world

Mexico City has the largest number of taxi drivers in the world, nearly 120,000. Also, have the pink taxis for women only. Drivers in these cars are also women, while traveling in these taxis are considered the safest for women. 10-minute taxi ride will cost you 5 USD, and for one kilometer of driving you will have to pay about 0.5 USD.

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