Catedral Metropolitana

The Catedral Metropolitana, seat of the Archdiocese of Mexico, fills the north side of the Zócalo and is the largest cathedral in the Americas. It took almost two and a half centuries to finish. Claudio de Arciniega drew up the plans, work began in 1573, and the soft lakebed meant the foundations alone took decades; the church was consecrated in 1656 but kept growing until 1813. José Damián Ortiz de Castro designed the bell towers and main façade from 1787, and after his death in 1793 Manuel Tolsá added the dome, the clock and the statues of Faith, Hope and Charity. The result mixes Renaissance, Baroque and Neoclassical work in chiluca stone and red tezontle, about 128 metres long and 67 metres high at the towers.

Inside, 16 side chapels (14 open to the public), each once sponsored by a guild, line the nave. Behind the high altar rises the Altar de los Reyes, a gilded Baroque altarpiece by Jerónimo de Balbás, 25 metres tall, finished in 1737; Balbás also made the Altar del Perdón near the main door, the first use in the Americas of the estípite, the tapering inverted pilaster that became the hallmark of Mexican Churrigueresque. The choir in the centre has carved stalls from 1696–1697 and the two largest 18th-century organs in the Americas, built in Mexico by José Nassarre and finished by 1736. Under the Altar de los Reyes is the crypt where most of Mexico's archbishops are buried, starting with Juan de Zumárraga. Next door, the Sagrario Metropolitano (1749–1760), by Lorenzo Rodríguez, has one of the most elaborate carved stone façades in the city.

Like everything on this old lakebed, the cathedral sinks, and not evenly, because parts of it rest on Aztec structures. A fire in 1967 destroyed paintings and most of the choir stalls, and by the 1990s the tilt was serious enough to put it on the World Monuments Fund watch list. From 1993 to 1998 engineers dug shafts beneath it to even out the settling; it came off the list in 2000, and a plumb line hanging inside still tracks the movement.

Entry is free and the church stays open for worship, so visitors share it with Mass-goers. Paid tours run by the cathedral take you into the choir, the crypts and behind the Altar de los Reyes; climbs up the bell towers were not being offered as of early 2026.