Cuajimalpa

Where the name comes from. Cuajimalpa comes from the Nahuatl Cuauhximalli, wood shavings, and pan, place —in other words, the sawmill. The name describes exactly what people did here: through the colonial period the inhabitants of these forests cut and gathered firewood, made charcoal, and farmed and raised animals on the slopes.

What the borough holds today. Cuajimalpa is the forested, mountainous west of Mexico City, and it contains two things that could not be less alike: the Desierto de los Leones national park, with its seventeenth-century Carmelite monastery in the pines, and the glass-tower business district of Santa Fe on its northern edge. Between them are pine and oak forest, cold-water rivers and the old villages of San Lorenzo Acopilco and San Pablo Chimalpa.

This page's address. Avenida Juárez in Cuajimalpa is the borough seat, where residents handle civil registry paperwork, grants and local services, open Monday to Friday 09:00–18:00 and closed at weekends. It also hosts cultural and educational events for the community.

Getting there. There is no metro in Cuajimalpa. Access is by car along the Toluca highway or Carretera México–Toluca, or by the bus services from Tacubaya and Observatorio —allow extra time, as the mountain roads and the Santa Fe approaches both jam at peak hours.