Weppner Enterprises

When Hernan Cortez discovered the Aztec Empire in 1519, he found 200,000 people living on an island in the middle of a lake. Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City, was one of the biggest and best-fed cities in the world. The city was completely surrounded by water.

To feed their enormous population, the Aztecs built chinampas, or floating gardens, to convert the marshy wetlands of Lake Texcoco into arable farmland. Each garden was 300 feet by 30 feet. To make a garden, workers weaved sticks together to form a giant raft, and then then piled mud from the bottom of the lake on top of the raft to create a layer of soil three feet thick.

Reposted by Catalyzing Change