Mexico City is the capital and most populous city in Mexico. It is the most populated city in America. It is located in the center of the country, in the Valley of Mexico, a plateau at an altitude of 2250 meters. It is surrounded by peaks that extend more than 5000 meters above sea level.

It is often referred to as official Distrito Federal (DF, Federal District) to avoid confusion with the country or the State of Mexico. Founded in 1325 by Mexicas (Aztecs), the city of Tenochtitlan Precolumbian was completely destroyed by Spanish conquerors in the early sixteenth century. Today Mexico City has become one of the most densely populated cities in the world with an estimated population of around 20 million people. This places Mexico City third in the world behind Tokyo and New York. It is also the second most populated urban area in the world after Tokyo. Political, economic and cultural development of Mexico, has made it into one of the most dynamic cities in Latin America. Mexico City still faces the problems of many other megacities such as population explosion, saturation channels of communication, crime and corruption.

Air pollution is one of the many problems that the authorities of the Mexican capital face. This pollution is the result of intense traffic - there are 4 million cars, 27,000 microbuses, 92,000 taxis which consumes about 14 million gallons of gasoline every day. Urban sprawl and the construction of new highways over the past thirty years have helped the increase use of cars in Mexico. The rapid growth of manufacturing plants and industries from abroad who have plants in Mexico for cheap labor have also added to the local pollution problem.

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