Tenochtitlan The city of Tenochtitlan was built on a lake. It was surrounded by mountains and was also near an active volcano. But this is not what forced them to create their enormous city on a lake. What influenced them was a priest who had a dream and told them to travel and search for a pear cactus with an eagle on it. That’s where they would build their kingdom and the cactus and the eagle just so happened to be on a tiny island in the middle of a lake. It was called “Lake Texcoco” and that’s where it was located. So they started building, they used stilts and created their own land using mud and plants. The city was a large system of roads and canals and everything was in a square for religious reasons. The fact that it was on a lake