Ecatepec de Morelos

About Ecatepec de Morelos

Ecatepec de Morelos is one of the most populous municipalities in Mexico, a vast urban area in the State of Mexico just north of Mexico City. Its name comes from the Nahuatl for the hill of the wind god Ehecatl, and the suffix honors independence hero José María Morelos, who was executed here in December 1815.

The old center of San Cristóbal Ecatepec keeps a colonial parish church, a civic plaza with a kiosk and monuments, and the house where Morelos spent his last hours, now a museum. Nearby runs the Albarradón de San Cristóbal, a colonial stone dike built to control floods from the lakes that once covered the Valley of Mexico.

Today most visitors experience Ecatepec from the Mexicable, an aerial cable car that glides over colorful rooftops toward the hills of the Sierra de Guadalupe. The city is also a practical base for day trips to the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City and the pyramids of Teotihuacan, about 30 kilometers to the northeast.