Calixtlahuaca spreads across the northern slope of Cerro Tenismó on the edge of Toluca. Its Nahuatl name means “place of houses on the plain,” but much of the surviving city climbs the hill. The location commanded routes through the Toluca Valley, a region occupied over time by Otomí, Teotihuacan, Toltec, Mazahua, Matlatzinca and Nahua communities.
The monuments seen today belong principally to the Matlatzinca centre conquered by the Mexica in the late fifteenth century. Archaeologist José García Payón directed major excavations and restorations from the 1930s, establishing the route through the site. Visitors should treat reconstructed masonry as interpretation and the excavated objects and building footprints as evidence, rather than imagining that every wall survives exactly as it stood.
