Mexico City is one of the biggest cities in the world, right? And when people imagine it, people

who haven't been there, even people who have been there, they just imagine this really big city,

lots of concrete and cars. But they're actually wetlands in Mexico City in this part of the city

called Sochi Milko. And I wonder if you could just tell us about them. Like, paint a picture for us.

What are they like? Sochi Milko is a window to the past. It's a really amazing place that shows us how

the city was originally when the Mexicas, or more commonly known as the Aztec Empire, the capital of the Aztec Empire here,

they built the city in these massive lakes that were covering the Valley of Mexico,

which is surrounded by lots of volcanoes.

And they created the city building Chinampas, which are these island farms that they

build with the mud that they dig from the bottom of the canals.

And they created these islands that little by little created a city where there were only lakes, right?

So nowadays you can still see a little bit of that paths in Sotomical.

And I think it's pretty stunning to know that those Chinampas were created to feed the Aztec population.

And nowadays, they are still growing food for Mexico City.

I'm Kelly McEvers, and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible, and wondrous places.

Today, we're talking to multimedia journalist Teresa DeMiguel about these remarkable

floating gardens in Sochi-Milco, Mexico City, called Chinampas. These Chinampas were built by

the Aztecs thousands of years ago and were preserved for a long time. But today, they're

vanishing. And Teresa is going to tell us why this is happening

and about the people who are trying to do something about it. That story after this. So, first off, Soshimilko, like, where is it in the city?

How would you situate it in the Mexico City area?

So Sotimilko is in the southern part of the city.

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