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The history

The founding on the islet

The humble beginning, in a marsh nobody wanted

Illustration for The founding on the islet

What it covers

How Tenochtitlan was founded on an islet in the lake, and what the sources say of those first years.

The full entry is in Spanish, and here is why

What you have read above is this project's own summary of the founding on the islet. The full entry — the part that rests on the sixteenth-century sources — has not been translated, and that is a decision rather than an omission.

We chose not to touch the primary text. Those sections quote Sahagún, Durán and the codices in their own words, often in sixteenth-century Castilian. A quotation carried across stops being a quotation: it loses the register, the ambiguity and the exact wording someone might want to check against a facsimile.

In Spanish the entry carries:

Read the full entry in the original Spanish → Nahuatl names and terms are identical in both versions.

How to cite this page

Alma Mexica, «The founding on the islet», The history. Revised 2026-09-17. https://almamexica.org/en/history/fundacion-islote/