Zócalo () is the common name of the main square in central Mexico City. Prior to the conquest by Spain, it was the main ceremonial center in the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan. The plaza used to be known simply as the Plaza Mayor ("Main Square") or Plaza de Armas ("Arms Square"), and today its formal name is Plaza de la Constitución ("Constitution Square").

This name does not come from any of the Mexican constitutions that have governed Mexico but from the Cádiz Constitution, which was signed in Spain in the year 1812. Even so, it is almost always called the Zócalo today. Plans were made to erect a column as a monument to independence, but only the base, or zócalo (meaning "plinth"), was built. long ago, but the name has lived on. Many other Mexican towns and cities, such as Oaxaca, Mérida, and Guadalajara, have adopted the word zócalo to refer to their main plazas, but not all.

It has been a gathering place for Mexicans since Aztec times, having been the site of Mexican ceremonies, the swearing-in of viceroys, royal proclamations, military parades, Independence ceremonies, and modern religious events such as the festivals of Holy Week and Corpus Christi. It has received foreign heads of state and is the main venue for both national celebrations and national protests. The Zócalo and surrounding blocks have played a central role in the city's planning and geography for almost 700 years. The site is just one block southwest of the Templo Mayor, which, according to Aztec legend and mythology, was considered the center of the universe.

Description

The modern Zócalo in Mexico City is 57,600 m<sup>2</sup> (240 m × 240 m). It is bordered by the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral to the north, the National Palace to the east, the Federal District buildings to the south and the Old Portal de Mercaderes to the west, the Nacional Monte de Piedad building at the northwest corner, with the Templo Mayor site to the northeast, just outside view. In the centre is a flagpole with an enormous Mexican flag ceremoniously raised and lowered each day A European-style plaza was not part of the conquered Aztec ; the old city had a sacred precinct or which was the absolute center of the city (and the universe, according to Aztec belief), but it was located to the immediate north and northeast of the modern-day .

upright=1.0|thumb|A view of the Plaza Mayor of Mexico city, ca. 1695, by [[Cristóbal de Villalpando. Painting currently located in Corsham Court, England]]

After the cathedral was constructed in the latter half of the 16th century, the look of the plaza changed. The old church faced east and not to the plaza itself. The new cathedral's three portals towered south over the plaza and giving the area a north–south orientation, which exists to this day.

The Parián was a set of shops in the southwest corner of the plaza used to store and sell luxury and exotic products brought by the Manila galleons from Asia, and later, luxury goods brought by galleons from Europe. This was opened in 1703 and earned a substantial income for the city council from shop rent, as well as turning the plaza into an "emporium of commerce"

This did not keep the rest of the plaza from becoming filled again with makeshift stalls such as the group known as "San José" located next to the Parián itself. This prompted historian Francisco Sedano to comment that it was ugly and unsightly. He claimed it was very difficult to walk around here at the time because of its uneven pavement, mud in the rainy season, aggressive street dogs, mounds of trash and human excrement tossed among corn husks and other discarded wrappings. as well as a statue of the goddess Coatlicue. The Calendar was put on display on the west side of the cathedral, where it remained until about 1890 when it was moved to the old "Centro Museum". It now resides in the Museum of Anthropology. The statue eventually made its way to this museum, but not until it was practically buried in one of the back patios of the Royal and Pontifical University until after Independence. The former merchants of the plaza were moved primarily to a new building called the Mercado de Volador (Market of the Flyer), located southeast of the plaza where the Supreme Court building stands today. President Santa Anna finally had the Parián demolished in 1843. This left the plaza bare again, except for some ash trees and flower gardens that were planted and protected by stone borders. Santa Anna wanted to build a monument to Mexican Independence in the center of the plaza, but his project got only as far as the base (zócalo), which stayed there for decades and gave the plaza its current popular name. It stayed this way until 1866 when the Paseo del Zócalo (Path of the Zócalo) was created in response to the numbers of people who were using the plaza to take walks. A garden with footpaths was created; fountains were placed at each corner; 72 iron benches were installed and the area was lighted by hydrogen gas lamps. Santa Anna's base, however, was not removed. The plaza deteriorated until, by the 1970s, all that was left were light poles and a large flagpole in the center. Then the ground was leveled again, the train tracks taken out, and the whole plaza cemented over. Automobile parking was prohibited and the plaza's shape was squared to 200 meters on each side. Later in the 1970s, the Zócalo was repaved with pink cobblestones; small trees protected by metal grates were planted; and small areas of grass were seeded around the flagpole.

In the late 1990s, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, then mayor of Mexico City, and Dr. Rene Coulomb, general director of the Historic Center Trust, launched a $300,000,000 renovation of the Zócalo and the surrounding city center, with the aim of attracting businesses and residents back to the area. There were plans to remove the iron grating separating the cathedral from the Zócalo, but there was so much public opposition to the idea that it was eventually scrapped.

21st century

In 2009, former mayor Marcelo Ebrard launched a campaign to perform maintenance works in the Historic Center (which, because of Congressional reduction of the annual budget of the local government, was largely supported with the money collected in the streets for that purpose by government officials). The campaign had satisfactory results.

In 2010, a replica of the Angel de la Independencia was brought to Zócalo as a way of spreading out the protesters from the original Angel site. This is because the original site of the Angel is located in a financial area, with a high traffic flow, making policing more difficult than the Zócalo.

The Day of the Dead celebrations at the Zocalo have been a common event, and a formal parade has been held at the square since 2016 after the James Bond film Spectre featured a parade there.

In 2001, followers of Zapatista leader Subcomandante Marcos, mostly poor Chiapan indigenous people, marched into the Zócalo to support a bill that would give them greater political autonomy. Following Cárdenas' lead, Andrés Manuel López Obrador staged major protests here after the 2006 Mexican presidential elections as well as a rally with thousands of participants against President Calderón's initiative to allow private and foreign investment in Mexico's state-owned energy company, PEMEX. On 30 August 2008, a peaceful protest against crime and violence filled the Zócalo to capacity.

thumb|upright=1.0|Protesters and Mexican army during [[Tlatelolco massacre|1968 protests]]

The plaza is home to regularly occurring political events. Just before 11 pm on each 15 September, the president of Mexico comes out onto the central balcony of the National Palace to perform the Grito de Dolores to the crowd gathered in the plaza.

Under the unpopular rule of Enrique Peña Nieto, the ceremony has been subjected to widespread criticism —mostly from left-leaning sources— for the government's notorious use of acarreados (people who are literally carried into the square by bus and paid for with food or other minor goods) in order to boost attendance numbers and simulate popular enthusiasm.

An alternative expression of Mexican pride is the celebration of the spring equinox on the Zócalo. This is done by groups looking to reassert the superiority of indigenous ethnic bloodlines (La Raza) and pre-Hispanic culture. They choose to do the ceremony here not only because it is close to where such rites used to be performed before the Spaniards came, but also because they are right next to the symbols of "Spanish" ecclesiastical and secular power (the cathedral and National Palace, respectively), which they oppose.

The Zócalo area has been, since 2014, where large rallies have been held in the aftermath of the 2014 Iguala mass kidnapping, an event that has become symbolic for the climate of widespread criminality, impunity and governmental corruption that many feel the country faces.

As an artistic venue

thumb|upright|A kid wearing the typical clothing to perform an Aztec Dance in the Zócalo

Since 1982, due to efforts to revitalize the city center, the Zócalo has become the scene of a number of artistic and cultural events. There are daily impromptu shows of Aztec dancers dancing to drums, wearing feathered headdresses and anklets made of concha shells. where nearly 18,000 Mexicans bared all for the artist, surpassing the record set earlier in Barcelona and artist Gregory Colbert's Ashes and Snow Nomadic Museum. One curious event was the building of a temporary ice-skating rink of about 3,200 m<sup>2</sup> in the middle of the Zócalo, for use by the city's residents for free in the winter of 2007. Since then, the rink has been repeatedly built up for several winter seasons.

The Festival de México is an annual event with programs dedicated to art (popular and fine) and academia held in the Zócalo and some other venues in the historic center. In 2008, the 24th Festival had 254 performances and shows from over 20 countries in 65 plazas and other locations near the plaza.

The Zócalo is often the site of major parades in the city, including the Mexico City Alebrije Parade.

Concerts by popular singers and groups have also been held here. Café Tacuba drew almost 100,000 people to the plaza in 2005 and Colombian superstar Shakira drew a crowd of about 210,000 according to Mexico's Civil Protection. In August 2008, a skateboarding/BMX event drew 50,000 young people on a Sunday afternoon. Paul McCartney drew an attendance of 250,000 people for a free concert played on the plaza on 10 May 2012 as a part of his On the Run Tour.

Justin Bieber also offered a free show on 11 July 2012, where he performed in front of 210,000 people as part of the tour for his 2012 album Believe. On 1 October 2016, Roger Waters performed in the square before 170,000 people, once again for free and with a strong political message against Donald Trump and Enrique Peña Nieto included in sections of the show, which consisted of outtakes from his Pink Floyd years.

On 15 March 2026, the square hosted the world's largest football class, which was attended by 9,500 people.

The sci-fi series Babylon 5 uses the name "Zocalo" as the station's main gathering place.

Dutch trance music producer Armin Van Buuren has a song called "Zocalo" on his 2005 album Shivers, which, Josh Gabriel, of Gabriel & Dresden, recounts is named after Zocalo Coffeehouse in San Leandro, California, which Armin visited while recording the song, and which is itself named after the Zócalo in Mexico City.

The pre-title sequence of the 2015 James Bond film Spectre takes place largely above the Zócalo, as Bond takes command of a SPECTRE getaway helicopter. The scene is set against a Day of the Dead parade, which actually had never been held at the square before. After the film's release, the city officials decided to hold a Day of the Dead parade starting at the Angel of Independence and finishing at the Zócalo on 29 October 2016, using props and wardrobe from the film. The parade has been held every year since.

The release of the acoustic version of the Twenty One Pilots song "Chlorine" contains the coordinates to this location.

The Zócalo appears as a unique quarter for the Mexican civilization in 2025's Civilization VII.

See also

  • Statues of Pegasus, Mexico City, formerly installed in the plaza
  • Zócalo (Puebla)

References