Toluca

• 1. Introduction

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  Toluca sits at 2,600 meters above sea level, making it the highest capital city in Mexico and in all of North America. That altitude shapes nearly everything about life here: the cool, thin air, the sports training camps that draw elite athletes, and a climate so temperate that temperatures rarely climb beyond 27 degrees Celsius no matter the season. But Toluca is not simply a city defined by its elevation. It is a place where Aztec codices recorded its name, where the roots of Mexican independence were watered by both sacrifice and idealism, and where a building designed as a municipal market was transformed into one of the most unusual botanical gardens on earth. How did a city founded by the Matlatzinca people on a valley floor become the industrial engine of the State of Mexico? What force kept Toluca at the center of Mexican political life for two centuries? And what is behind the stained glass ceiling that stretches across 3,200 square meters inside a single city block? Those are the questions this documentary sets out to answer.

• 2. Before the Spaniards

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  The valley that cradled the city was called Matlatzinco Valley in ancient times, home to at least four distinct linguistic groups: the Matlatzinca, Otomi, Mazahua, and Nahua peoples. Power in the valley was anchored at Calixtlahuaca, a large and formidable capital whose ruins still stand just north of the modern city. In 1473, the Aztecs renamed the area using Nahuatl, basing the word on Tolo, a god they believed resided in the crater of the nearby volcano. The name they gave it combined Tolo's name with the locative suffix can, yielding Tollocan, or "place of Tolo".

  In 1478, the Mexica emperor Axayacatl conquered the Toluca Valley, stripped Calixtlahuaca of its ruling dynasty, and redistributed lands to nobles from the Valley of Mexico. A local lord named Cachimatzin, also known as Chimaltecuhtli, collaborated with the new power and retained influence. The emperor then repositioned Tollocan, a minor city-state before the conquest, as the new imperial provincial capital. Through Tollocan, surrounding towns sent tribute to the Aztec Empire in the form of warrior costumes, cotton and maguey mantles, and especially large quantities of maize.

  The Matlatzincas had originally named their settlement Nepintahihui, meaning "land of corn", and that agricultural identity endured in the tribute system long after political control had changed hands. Before the Spanish arrived, a tree known as "Las Manitas Rojas", which translates as "little red hands", was planted in what is now the monastery of Nuestra Senora del Carmen. Its survival into the colonial period was taken as evidence that Toluca had been significant enough for the Aztecs to establish a botanical garden there.

• 3. Colonial Foundations

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  In 1521, Gonzalo de Sandoval, one of Cortes' many sergeants, led Spanish troops into the Valley of Toluca. The valley and the emerging city were folded into the concession King Carlos V of Spain granted to Hernan Cortes, and Toluca's first colonial governor was Pedro Cortes Coyotzin. The evangelization effort launched three years later, in 1524, and its most consequential figure was Fray Andres Castro, a friar from Burgos, the old capital of Castile. He became the first person to learn the native Matlatzincan language and worked actively to protect the Matlatzinca people from the abuses of early colonial rule. A plaza bearing his name, with a sculpture of him, still stands in the city today.

  A Spanish community was formally established in 1530, but the city moved slowly through the colonial hierarchy. It was categorized as a town only in 1677 and recognized as a city as early as 1662, though official royal status was granted by King Carlos IV on the 12th of September 1799. Road construction linking Toluca to Mexico City began in 1793, closing a geographic gap that would later become the spine of the city's economic identity.

  From the start of colonial life, Toluca built a local economy around smoked and cured meats, particularly chorizo sausage made from ground pork, tomato sauce, pumpkin, and a blend of spices including white wine, almonds, and chile. That identity stuck so firmly that in Mexico the word "chorizo" became a colloquial nickname for anything or anyone from Toluca. The nearby town of Lerma still carries on the tradition today.

• 4. Independence and Statehood

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  Miguel Hidalgo, the priest who launched Mexico's independence movement, passed through Toluca in 1810 on his way to the Battle of Monte de las Cruces, staying in the city for several days. The building that later housed the Jose Maria Velasco Museum was occupied by Hidalgo before that battle. A year later, in 1811, Spanish royalist forces executed a group of indigenous Mexicans in Toluca. The place where they died was named the Plaza of the Martyrs in their memory, and that name persists in the city's central square today.

  The first city council was installed in 1812, and independence was proclaimed by local authorities in 1821. After the State of Mexico was created in 1825, the state capital shifted between cities multiple times before Toluca was permanently designated as its constitutional capital in 1830. Construction of Los Portales, the iconic arcade lining three sides of a downtown city block, began in 1832. The eastern arcade, with 37 arches, is called "20 de Noviembre"; the southern one, with 44 arches, is called "Madero"; and the western one, with 35 arches, is called "Reforma".

  In 1847, a literary institute opened in Toluca thanks to Ignacio Ramirez, nicknamed El Nigromante. That institution eventually became the Universidad Autonoma del Estado de Mexico, which gained full autonomy in 1956 and counts among its notable alumni Adolfo Lopez Mateos, who later served as president of Mexico from 1958 to 1964. In 1861, the city took its current official name, Toluca de Lerdo, in honor of President Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada. The 1880s brought an industrial push: the railroad opened in 1881, the Bank of State of Mexico issued the country's first banknotes that same year, and the Teachers College was founded in 1882.

• 5. Industrial Powerhouse

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  Toluca began consolidating as an industrial center in the 1940s, but the most intense period of growth ran from the 1950s through most of the 1980s. Its geographic position near the center of Mexico and its proximity to Mexico City drew manufacturers who found in Toluca both infrastructure and a workforce. The industrial zone of Toluca-Lerma-Tianguistenco, on the city's north side, began attracting companies in 1965, and the city now operates five additional major industrial parks.

  Chrysler's Toluca Car Assembly plant has manufactured automobiles since 1968. The 220-acre complex employs 2,300 people. Other major companies with manufacturing or research facilities in the area include BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Coca-Cola, Femsa, Grupo Bimbo, Nissan, Nestle, Pfizer, Bayer, and Barcel. Mercedes-Benz produces the C-Class, E-Class, and G-Class here, and upgrades several other models to armored vehicles at the same facility. BMW manufactures its 3, 5, 7, and X5 series locally and also offers armored variants.

  The industrial base of the Toluca metropolitan area employs over 33% of the municipality's population and 6% of the entire state's population. Outside the metro area, agriculture and livestock still underpin the economy. Just over four percent of the total municipal population farms land that produces corn, wheat, beans, potatoes, peas, fava beans, and oats. Livestock operations, numbering 10,286 sites raising cattle, pigs, sheep, and poultry, generate more income than crop farming. Tourism, driven by the Nevado de Toluca volcano and the archaeological zone of Calixtlahuaca, accounts for roughly 50% of the state's total tourism income despite being little known internationally.

• 6. The Cosmovitral and Cultural Life

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  In 1910, engineer Manuel Arratia designed a stone and ironwork building in downtown Toluca to house a municipal market called the "16 de Septiembre". The structure was built in Art Nouveau and Neoclassical style and covered 5,000 square meters. Seventy years later, that market became something no one had originally intended: Cosmovitral, a botanical garden holding more than 400 plant species from around the world and a series of stained glass windows considered the largest in the world.

  The stained glass was designed by Mexican artist Leopoldo Flores. The work was inaugurated in 1980 and completed in 1990. The central image joins the "Hombre Sol", or Sun Man, with the Galaxy of Andromeda, representing the Milky Way overhead. The monumental piece measures 3,200 square meters, assembled from more than 30,000 pieces and half a million glass fragments in 28 different colors sourced from Italy, Germany, France, Belgium, Japan, Canada, and the United States. At the spring equinox, the solar disc crosses the heart of the Sun Man figure, producing what visitors describe as an explosion of light.

  Toluca is second only to Mexico City in the number of museums. The Museo de Bellas Artes, founded in 1945 by former governor Isidro Fabela, occupies an 18th-century building that served as the Descalced Carmelite Purisima Concepcion convent from 1697 to 1711. Among its most remarkable holdings is a catafalque dating from the mid-18th century. Because church authorities almost invariably burned such objects, surviving examples are extraordinarily rare. The Museo de la Acuarela, founded in 1993, is one of the few museums in the world dedicated entirely to watercolor painting, and it is housed in a building historically known as "El Gallito", or Little Rooster, a name carved into the crest of its main facade.

• 7. Football, Sport, and the Red Devils

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  Deportivo Toluca Futbol Club was founded in 1917 and has competed in the Liga MX since the 1950s. The club, commonly called the Diablos Rojos or Red Devils, experienced one of the most successful stretches in Mexican football during the late 1990s and 2000s, winning multiple league championships in that period. Home matches are played at Estadio Nemesio Diez, a venue inaugurated in 1954 with a capacity of approximately 30,000 spectators. The stadium sits near downtown Toluca and is popularly nicknamed "La Bombonera".

  The club's women's team, Deportivo Toluca Femenil, was founded in 2017 and also plays at Estadio Nemesio Diez, competing in the Liga MX Femenil. Boxing has also drawn elite names to the city. Famous boxers including Julio Cesar Chavez and Puerto Rico's Wilfredo Vazquez have used Toluca as a training center, drawn in part by the city's altitude of 2,600 meters, which builds cardiovascular capacity in ways that training at sea level cannot replicate.

  The Nevado de Toluca volcano, 30 km southwest of the city, adds a further dimension to Toluca's sporting identity. The volcano, also called Xinantecatl, is unique in Mexico for having two lagoons inside its crater that visitors can reach by automobile. Mountain biking, climbing, and high-altitude running all take place on its slopes. The area was designated the Nevado de Toluca National Park in January 1936 and covers about 1,517 square kilometers. Recent reports on global warming have raised concerns that the mountain's snow cap could disappear entirely within a few decades, which has complicated proposals to develop it as a ski destination.