633 attractions · At the center, a World Heritage Site, and all over the city.

What this section covers. The monuments, palaces and great buildings — the city read as four layers of stone laid on top of each other.

The pre-Hispanic layer. The Templo Mayor, the main temple of Tenochtitlan, found in 1978 by electricity workers a few metres from the cathedral and still being excavated. Tlatelolco, Cuicuilco and the Cerro de la Estrella. Everything here stands on the drained lakebed, which is why so much of the centre leans.

The colonial layer. The Metropolitan Cathedral, the largest in the Americas, built over two and a half centuries; the Palacio Nacional, on the site of Moctezuma's palace, holding Rivera's murals of Mexican history; the Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso; and the palaces of Madero and Isabel la Católica.

The Porfirian layer. Paseo de la Reforma, conceived by Maximilian and finished as a Champs-Élysées by Porfirio Díaz, with the Ángel de la Independencia, the Diana and the monument to Cuauhtémoc; the Palacio de Bellas Artes; and the Monumento a la Revolución, built from the steel frame of a legislative palace the Revolution interrupted.

The modern layer. The Torre Latinoamericana, which survived the 1957 and 1985 earthquakes on unstable ground and has a viewing deck; Ciudad Universitaria, a World Heritage campus; and the Museo Soumaya.

Practical notes. Most of this is in the centre and walkable. Museums close on Mondays. Viewpoints are best an hour before sunset.