Peñón Viejo station
Metro · A Line A
Neighbouring stations
The story behind the icon
The station icon represents a crag. It is based on the way the Aztecs depicted certain crags, taken from Luis González Aparicio's reconstructive plan of the region of Tenochtitlan. The image represents the hill of the Federal District situated north-east of the hill of La Estrella and south-east of the Peñón de Los Baños.
In pre-Hispanic times it was an islet of Lake Texcoco called Tepepolco. Moctezuma Xocoyotzin used it as a resting place. In colonial times, however, it changed its name because in 1521, during the siege of Tenochtitlan, Hernán Cortés set up his headquarters there before making for Coyoacán; the name was Peñón del Marqués because he would later be named Marqués del Valle de Oaxaca.
This crag marked the urban limit of Mexico City, but in the seventies it became part of the urban sprawl. Today it is also called the hill of Peñón Viejo.