Metro UAM Azcapotzalco

Metro UAM-Azcapotzalco is about as close as you can get to the very center of old Azcapotzalco. On Metro Line 6, the Metro authorities renamed the station in 2014 to include the Metropolitan Autonomous University (UAM) in the station name. The UAM Azcapotzalco campus is about one kilometer north of the station. UAM students make up a huge number of the station’s regular passengers, about 7,100 of them every day.

Azcapotzalco is among the oldest continuously inhabited parts of the city. The station logo depicts an ant, and one can just imagine this as the place of ant hills in some distant past.

• The Nahuatl name, āzcapōtzalli, consists of “anthill” + -co “place.” It’s quite literally, “the place of anthills.”

Two ethnic groups, the Otomi and the Teotihuacanos inhabited the area for hundreds of years. All of this was well before the Mexica arrived to the island that became Mexico-Tenochtitlan. Commanded by the a ruler called Xólotl, they took advantage of the fall of the Toltec kingdom. The Toltec’s had ruled to the north and west. Some time later, groups of these people arrived at present day Azcapotzalco. They prospered until the Triple Alliance of Tenochtitlán, Texcoco and Tacuba eventually subdued the city-state and subjugated its inhabitants.

Present-day Azcapotzalco is just as complicated and interesting. Nearby the Metro UAM Azcapotzalco station, besides the University, the colonial Church of San Marcos Evangelista is a short walk to the east.

To the south, you’re also very close to center of Azcapotzalco and the alcaldía building, as well as the churches, cultural centers, and libraries that still make up a big part of the community center.