Mexico · Ciudad de México · Mexico City
Tlalpan, Mexico City — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Tlalpan is the southernmost borough of Mexico City, ringed by the Ajusco highlands and the ruined pyramid of Cuicuilco.
About Tlalpan
Where to stay in Tlalpan
Where you base yourself shapes the visit — here's the character of each area.
Tlalpan spreads across the far south of Mexico City, and its beds sit in the old town core rather than in tall towers. Base yourself in the centre. Small hotels and guesthouses stand within a short walk of the Jardín Principal and the San Agustín church, while the Ajusco side draws walkers bound for the Bosque de Tlalpan.
Weekends fill the plaza. Choose the historic grid for cafés and colonial streets on foot.
About Tlalpan
What are the main landmarks in Tlalpan?
Cuicuilco anchors the borough, a pre-Columbian ceremonial centre whose Great Circular Base rose in stone long before the Aztec capital, and its low platform survives beside the modern avenues. The ruin is round. Nearby the Bosque de Tlalpan spreads over volcanic ground below the Ajusco range, sheltering the Tenantongo pyramid among its pines, while the Fuentes Brotantes de Tlalpan guards a spring-fed ravine.
The San Agustín church faces the Jardín Principal at the old town core.
What is the history of Tlalpan?
Founded as a Dominican mission around the San Agustín church, the village was renamed Villa de San Agustín de las Cuevas in 1645 for the small caves that pitted the volcanic ground. The name Tlalpan is Nahuatl. It marks a place on the earth where roads once converged toward the old capital of Tenochtitlan, and the settlement became a formal borough of Mexico City in 1928, long after the earlier ceremonial city at Cuicuilco had fallen silent.
The Jardín Principal still holds the colonial plaza.
Where is Tlalpan?
Tlalpan climbs from the flat southern edge of Mexico City into the pine-forested slopes of the Ajusco range, its old core a low grid of colonial streets around the Jardín Principal.
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Updated July 2026