|Music and dance during a One Flower ceremony, from the
Florentine Codex.| |Regions with significant populations|
|Related ethnic groups| Other Nahua peoples ||This section
relies largely or entirely upon a single source. (September
2009)| The Mexica (Nahuatl: Mēxihcah, [meːˈʃiʔkaʔ]; the singular
is Mēxihcatl [meːˈʃiʔkat͡ɬ]) or Mexicas — called Aztecs in
occidental historiography, although this term is not limited to
the Mexica — were an indigenous people of the Valley of Mexico,
known today as the rulers of the Aztec empire. The Mexica were a
Nahua people who founded their two cities Tenochtitlan and
Tlatelolco on raised islets in Lake Texcoco around AD 1200.
After the rise of the Tenochca Mexica, they came to dominate the
other Mexica city-state Tlatelolco. The Mexica are eponymous of
the placename Mexico Mēxihco [meːˈʃiʔko]. This refers to the
interconnected settlements in the valley which became the site
of what is now Mexico City, which held natural, geographical,
and population advantages as the metropo