Flooding in the South of the Mexico Basin Through the Cartographic Image (1866-1869)]

Abstract

Mexico City’s association with the lacustrine system of the basin upon which it was established was a relationship that entered its tensest moments in the periodic flooding of the inhabited territory, of which detailed reports exist from the beginning of the Viceroyalty until the twentieth century. This essay analyzes a cartographic document that details one such occurrence. By studying a plan showing the extent of inundation in the south of the Valley of Mexico, the social, political, and above all the professional context in which it took place is identified, and it is compared with other similar documents so as to trace the premises of the cartographic image of the inundation and generally of maps in nineteenth-century Mexico.