Aztec Chinampas Expansion in Lake Texcoco

1427

Engineers of the Triple Alliance expanded the ingenious system of floating gardens in the shallow waters of Lake Texcoco, creating artificial agricultural islands of woven reeds, lake mud, and anchored vegetation that produced multiple harvests per year without exhausting the soil. The chinampas fed a capital of over two hundred thousand people and represented one of the most productive and sustainable agricultural systems anywhere in the pre-industrial world.