History Fact Finder | Government and Politics - How Did The Aztec And Inca Empires Compare With The Mayan Empire?

How did the Aztec and Inca Empires compare with the Mayan Empire?

While all three empires were advanced civilizations that were eventually conquered by the Spaniards, the Incan and Aztecan cultures reached their peaks in the fifteenth century, just before the arrival of the Europeans in the New World (the European term for North and South America). The Mayan civilization reached its height about five hundred years earlier and was already in decline by the time of the European invasion.

Each group occupied a different region of the Americas. The Aztec settled in central Mexico, the Inca in western South America (primarily Peru), and the Maya in the Yucatán Peninsula and Central America. Archeological evidence shows that these societies traded with one another and with Native Americans to the north.

The Aztec founded their central city of Tenochtitlán, the site of Mexico City, about 1325. A...

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