Xico Volcanic Crater
By population, Mexico City is the third largest city in the world, sent into the record books by a massive greater metropolitan area, that has a population exceeding 19 million people.
The municipality of Xico is part of the Mexico City metropolitan area, marking the very edge of the city’s southernmost reach. It is at this point that the city has begun to make a slight detour, around Cerro de Xico (Xico hill).
It should be obvious that this isn’t just a hill of course – it’s a beautifully round volcanic crater; one that is in the process of being swallowed up by the ever advancing urban sprawl.
Looking closer we can see the interior of the crater has been given over to agriculture, and the far side of the caldera looks to be the site of a local graveyard.
What’s really interesting here is the juxtaposition of the urban and rural worlds, protected from one another by the crater wall.
I wonder if the little island of agriculture will stay protected in the future, as Mexico City inevitably expands around it?
Thanks to Virtual Globe Trotting.
North and a little west (a doze mile maybe) what is that big concrete circle?
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
Whatever it is, it’s a spiral. A particle collider maybe?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Caracol%2C_Ecatepec
Go to Google Maps (Satellite), zoom in to the structure, and select “More… Wikipedia” — there’s a Wikipedia icon right in the middle of the concrete circle.
What’s with the red/orange roads a bit to the north? Are those an imaging artifact or for real? And if for real: What the hell is it?
Those are called in many ways: Puestos, Tianguis, Sobre ruedas (on wheels), etc. But the thing is, that they are street vendors (not a flea market) and they sell everything from food (tacos, tortas, sopes, tamales, etc.), to clothes, auto parts (some people say that those are from stolen vehicles), piracy (software, games, music CD’s, DVD’s,…) and the list goes on. You can see those too near The Zocalo in Mexico City Megapost in GSS.