In Google Maps’ flat view of the Valley of Mexico, Lake Texcoco looks like a wasteland, clearly divided from the urban area—which sprawls westward like a thick set of small squares—by a sharp straight line that crosses it from north to south. To the east, on the contrary, the monochromatic surface, what’s left of the ancient basin, quickly breaks into green and brown sections, interrupted by small lines indicating trails, borders or geological barriers: it’s a region and it constantly re-draws its limits. The towns and ejidos to the east spread irregularly, sometimes overlapping, sometimes sprinkling the lake meadow with encroaching dots or small rectangles. Often, farming villages that have feuded about their border with Lake Texcoco for decades, don’t stand out in this version of the map. On the contrary, the map pinpoints some inexistent places and shows geographical spots that have disappeared. Some towns or places that matter in the region’s political configuration are written in lower-case letters easily confused with the name of a street or a neighborhood in the city of Texcoco. Other settlements have no place in this flat, general representation of the territory. [...]
Cartography
in ENCYCLOPEDIA