“And when we saw all those cities and villages built on the water and other great cities on the land, and that straight and level causeway that led to Tenochtitlan, we were amazed.. Indeed, some of our soldiers asked us if it was not all a dream,” a Spanish chronicler, Bernal Diaz del Castillo (Woodard), describes the beautiful capital of the Aztec Empire, Tenochtitlan, in awe of the intricate landscape of the city ​​upon their Spanish arrival. The Aztecs were located in the basin of Mexico, which is part of Mesoamerica (Popper refers to the region known as Central America which includes the modern nations of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, and El Salvador). Several innovative developments took place in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, such as chocolate, their divinatory calendar, their writing systems, and a Mayan ball game called Ollama. However, the invention in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica that holds the most significance is the development of Chinampa agriculture. The Aztecs used many agricultural techniques to feed their ever-growing population, but since Tenochtitlan was built on swampy land, chinampas were the main food production (Jaime Cóttrill C.). Although the Aztecs adapted and popularized chinampa agriculture, the Xochimilca were the first to develop this raised-bed agriculture. The Aztecs came to use chinampas after expanding their empire into the Basin of Mexico and conquering the region's original people, the Xochimilca. The Xochimilca people had settled on a small peninsula jutting into Lake Xochimilco; hence their name. From this lake is where the Xochimilca obtained all the materials to build all their structures. As their population grew, the Xochimilca needed a new source of food, so...... middle of paper ......ml>.Cóttrill C, Jaime .. Np. Network. November 20, 2013..Woodard, Spencer. “Chinampa: Raised-bed hydrological agriculture”. anthropogen.com.Wordpress, April 24, 2011. Web. November 20, 2013.Pohl, J.. Np. Network. November 20, 2013..Mader, R.. Np. Network. November 21, 2013..Arco, Lee J. and Elliot M. Abrams. "An Essay on Energy: The Construction of the Aztec Chinampa System." antiquities 80. 310 (2006): 906-918. Print.The National Geographic Society. People and places of the past. Washington DC: The National Geographic Society, 1983. Print.Morehart, Christopher T. “Mapping Ancient Chinampa Landscapes in the Basin of Mexico: A Remote Sensing and GIS Approach” Journal of Archaeological Science (2012): Print.