Talk:Aztecs

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Aztecs article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the subject of the article.

Add new text under old text. New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Start a new topic Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed Article policies Neutral point of view No original research Verifiability

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives (index): 1Auto-archiving period: 3 months

This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (center, color, defense, realize, traveled) and some terms may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

	Aztecs was one of the Social sciences and society good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones Date Process Result July 26, 2006 Peer review Reviewed February 23, 2007 Good article nominee Listed April 17, 2008 Good article reassessment Delisted April 20, 2018 Good article nominee Listed December 22, 2025 Good article reassessment Delisted Current status: Delisted good article

This  level-3 vital article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Mesoamerica (defunct) This article is within the scope of WikiProject Mesoamerica, a project which is currently considered to be defunct.MesoamericaWikipedia:WikiProject MesoamericaTemplate:WikiProject MesoamericaMesoamerica History High‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject History, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the subject of History on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.HistoryWikipedia:WikiProject HistoryTemplate:WikiProject Historyhistory High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale. Indigenous peoples of the Americas Top‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Indigenous peoples of the Americas, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Indigenous peoples of the Americas on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Indigenous peoples of the AmericasWikipedia:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of the AmericasTemplate:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of the AmericasIndigenous peoples of the Americas Top This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale. Mexico High‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Mexico, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Mexico on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.MexicoWikipedia:WikiProject MexicoTemplate:WikiProject MexicoMexico High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale. Ethnic groups High‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Ethnic groups, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of articles relating to ethnic groups, nationalities, and other cultural identities on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Ethnic groupsWikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic groupsTemplate:WikiProject Ethnic groupsEthnic groups High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale. WikiProject Ethnic groups open tasks: Here are some open WikiProject Ethnic groups tasks: Meta-tasks: Place the {{Ethnic groups}} template on the talk page of articles within the scope of this project. Resolve the disparity in importance rankings among different ethnic groups Articles about ethnic groups that currently have issues needing resolution: Category:Unassessed Ethnic groups articles Category:Ethnic groups articles needing merge action Category:Ethnic groups articles needing infoboxes Category:Ethnic groups articles needing reassessment Category:Ethnic groups articles needing attention Iyer Peruvian people Start an article: Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic groups/Article requests Feel free to edit this list or discuss these tasks.

This article was created or improved during WikiProject Latin America's Latin American and the Caribbean 10,000 Challenge, which started on November 1, 2016, and is ongoing. You can participate!

On 21 April 2018, it was proposed that this article be moved from Aztec to Aztecs. The result of the discussion was moved.

This section is pinned and will not be automatically archived.

• Talk:Aztecs/2002-2004
• Talk:Aztecs/2005
• Talk:Aztecs/2006-1 (Jan-May)
• Talk:Aztecs/2006-2 (May-Dec)
• Talk:Aztecs/2007-1 (Jan-May)
• Talk:Aztecs/Slavery
• Talk:Aztecs/Cannibalism
• Talk:Aztecs/Sacrifice
• Talk:Aztecs/Terminology-1 (Aztec vs Mexica vs Nahua etc)
• Talk:Aztecs/Terminology-2 (more of the same)
• Talk:Aztecs/2007-2017

Some of the older entries in Talk:Aztecs have been moved to archival subpages. The organization of these archival subpages is both chronological AND topical. This means that entries are extracted from this page and moved to an appropriate subpage according to topic AND to an appropriate subpage according to year.

Some entries have been copied to Wikipedia:WikiProject Aztec/Terminology.

It is suggested that all current discussion be restricted to this page. Please do not conduct discussion on an archival subpage as many people will watch only this page (Talk:Aztecs) for new entries.

From time to time, editors may choose to move old entries from this page to an archival subpage at their discretion. It is suggested that you let entries age here for at least a month or more before moving them to the archival subpage.

If you are a new editor of the Aztecs article, please review this Talk page and any relevant subpages before making edits.

In particular, you may find the Wikipedia:WikiProject Aztec/Terminology page useful as it covers a number of issues of usage such as capitalization, spelling, pronunciation, etc.

This article seems redundant considering more recent scholarship on Mesoamerican civilizations and the related articles available on Wikipedia. Camilla Townsend notes in her book, The Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs (2019) on page xi that: "...technically speaking, there never were any 'Aztecs'. No people ever called themselves that... Its use is often confusing..." Townsend limits the word mostly to the title and introduction to better communicate to the reader. The information presented in this Wikipedia article might be better communicated by merging it with the articles on the Aztec Empire, Mexica, and Nahuas. The term "Aztec" should redirect to the article on the Mexica with the introduction including a clarification on the terminology. I believe the introduction of historian James Lockhart's Nahuas After The Conquest (1992) further supports this change, "These people I call Nahuas, a name they sometimes used themselves and the one that has become current today in Mexico, in preference to Aztecs. The latter term has several decisive disadvantages, it implies a kind of quasi-national unity that did not exist... and by standards of its time, its use for anyone other than the Mexica... would have been improper even if it had been the Mexica's primary designation, which it was not." The article for the Tepanec references the "Aztecs (or Mexica)" with hyperlinks to both articles; these proposed changes would better reflect the literature and provide a cleaner reading experience for users interested in the "Aztecs" and related topics. 2fish2 (talk) 05:19, 7 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

For an article which strives to be long on the history of the Aztecs, it is lacking very much on what basically forever changed Aztec society and culture, which was overwhelming defeat by Hernan Cortez and the Spanish / European conquests. To leave that out, would be like leaving out from the article of Carthage and the Carthaginians, the complete and total conquest by the Roman Empire. Any lack of full context as to why a society and culture declines does not do proper justice to world history. Leaving this important part out, does not erase that it happened. ~2026-35430-28 (talk) 14:51, 17 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

The article is mostly about Aztec society before its destruction, which seems the right focus. Some of the stuff you mention is covered in the "Colonial period, 1521–1821" section, with cross-references to articles where further information can be found. I agree it could be expanded a bit, but the main article focus rightly lies elsewhere. Gawaon (talk) 04:28, 18 June 2026 (UTC)Reply