Chapter 3 - Living on the Land

Summary

The country of New Spain is similar to Spain in that it has almost the same kind of mountains, valleys and fields, except that its mountains are more formidable and rugged.... Also there are ranges known to extend more than two hundred leagues ... there are large rivers and very good fresh-water springs; extensive forests, over mountain and plain, of very tall pines, cedars, oaks, cypresses, encinos and many varieties of mountain timber.

Anonymous Conqueror 1993: 165; originally appeared second half of sixteenth century, based on early sixteenth-century observations

Environmental Features of the Aztec World

The Aztec imperial domain lay entirely within the tropics. Yet it was an immensely diverse region, its physical variations dependent largely on differences in elevation and rainfall (Figure 3.1). It was a land of majestic snow-capped volcanic mountains, broad fertile plateaus, semiarid valleys, lake-filled basins, verdant mountains slashed by deep barrancas, dense rain forests, mangrove swamps, and charming lagoons. It was a land ranging in elevation from sea level to 5,610 meters above sea level, and it is usefully divided by modern geographers into three distinct altitudinal levels: tierra caliente, tierra templada, and tierra fría (see Case 3.1).