Anahuac (Spanish: ; Nahuatl: ', ) is a Nahuatl name which means "close to water." It can be broken down as ' + ', where ' means "water" and the suffix ' is a relational word that can be affixed to a noun, meaning "next to" or "close to." Anahuac is sometimes used interchangeably with "Valley of Mexico", but Anahuac properly designates the south-central part of the valley, where well-developed pre-Hispanic culture traits had created distinctive landscapes now hidden by the urban sprawl of Mexico City. In the sense of modern geomorphological terminology, "Valley of Mexico" is misnamed.
Boundaries
According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, Anáhuac (sic) is "limited by the traditional and vaguely defined boundaries of an ancient American empire or confederation of that name previous to the Spanish conquest."