he rise of the Aztec, the Valley of Mexico was the center of a highly developed civilization. A fertile basin, the valley was located 7800 feet above sea level. In its center lay five interconnected lakes dotted with marshy islands. From about AD 100 to 650 the valley was dominated by the city of Teotihuacán, center of a powerful religious, economic, and political state. After the decline of Teotihuacán, the Toltec civilization reached its height in the 10th and 11th centuries.
             In the 13th century wandering bands of Nahuatl-speaking warriors, often called Chichimec, invaded the valley. They took over Toltec cities, such as Atzcapotzalco, and founded new ones, such as Texcoco de Mora. The Chichimec combined their own cultural traditions with those of the Toltec to form the early Aztec civilization, whose social structure, economy, and arts would reach their height under the rule of the later empire.
             The group that eventually founded the Aztec Empire, the Mexica, migrated to the Valley of Mexico in the middle of the 13th century. As late arrivals, the Mexica, a hunter-gatherer people, were forced by other groups in the valley to take refuge on tow islands near the western shore of La
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