Chinampa raised-field agriculture
Chinampas (agricultura lacustre intensiva)
- Date
- c. 1325 · confidence medium
- Place
- Tenochtitlan and Xochimilco, Lake Texcoco, Mexico
- Credited to
- Nahua peoples of the Valley of Mexico (the Mexica)
- Field
- Life & health
What it is
Artificial islands of mud and vegetation anchored with willows in shallow waters, yielding up to seven harvests a year of maize, chilli and squash. The most productive agricultural system in pre-Columbian America.
Earlier chinampas existed in the basin (11th–12th centuries); the great expansion was Mexica (14th–15th centuries).
What it led to
- the food supply of Tenochtitlan (200,000 inhabitants) and the Mexica empire
- lake hydraulic engineering: the Nezahualcoyotl dike (1449) and aqueducts
- a model of sustainable agriculture studied today in agroecology
Built on
- Maya and Tiwanaku raised fields
- maize farming
Made possible
- Nezahualcóyotl dyke
- Chapultepec aqueduct