Mesoamerica · Animated schematic fronts

Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire

Spanish forces and large Indigenous alliances fought the Mexica and their allies.

This war had no continuous front. The line is a schematic limit of advance and operations: it summarises campaigns and is not a trench line or an administrative border. The coloured areas are operational sides, not evidence of contiguous occupation; in-between frames are interpolated and closing edges are graphic. The line follows the march of Cortés and his allies between the Gulf coast and the Valley of Mexico; the territory behind it belonged mainly to indigenous allies and was not occupied by Spaniards.