Map - San Juan Teotihuacán (Teotihuacán)

Teotihuacán is a municipality located in the State of Mexico. The municipal seat is the town of Teotihuacán de Arista. It is in the northeast of the Valley of Mexico, 45 km northeast of Mexico City and 119 km from the state capital of Toluca. Teotihuacan takes its name from the ancient city and World Heritage site that is located next to the municipal seat. "Teotihuacan" is from Nahuatl and means "place of the gods." In Nahua mythology the sun and the moon were created here. The seal of the municipality features the Pyramid of the Sun from the archeological site, which represents the four cardinal directions. The building is tied to a character that represents water which is linked to an arm that is joined to the head of an indigenous person who is seated and speaking. This person represents a god. Much of the history of the area has been tied to the ancient city, most recently involves controversy connected with commerce and development around the site.

According to myth, this site was chosen by the gods to create the center of the universe. Settlement began here around 500 BCE as a village making stone objects. Starting in the 2nd century CE, it grew into a political and religious center which lasted until the 9th century. This was the largest urban center to be constructed in central Mexico until Tenochtitlan further south in the 15th century. All that is left of this city is the archeological site, which preserves structures such as the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon, the Temple of Quetzalcoatl, the market and numerous smaller structures, most of which were government buildings.

At the time of the Spanish conquest, the Teotihuacan area was venerated by the Aztecs, but this status died off with the coming of Christianity. The area came under the control of Texcoco. The area was renamed San Juan Teotihuacan and was the encomienda of Francisco de Verdugo Bazan by the end of the 16th century. During the Mexican War of Independence no battles were fought here although both insurgent and royalist armies passed through at one time or another. The municipality was taxed heavily to feed Mexico City during this time, leading to the abandonment of many fields.

The Mexican Revolution in the early 20th century had profound effects on the municipality as well as many other rural areas in Mexico. The various factions loyal to insurgents such as Emiliano Zapata, Venustiano Carranza and Álvaro Obregón came and went producing anarchy and scarcity of food. By the end of the war, there was widespread hunger in the municipality, with fields in ruins.

Since then, much of the municipality's history has been tied to the archeological site. Archeological explorations started at the site by Leopoldo Batres as early as 1905. The Pyramid of the Sun was the first to be explored and restored, followed by a number of other religious structures. In 1962, the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH) began work at the site under Ignacio Bernal, which was completed in 1964. This project explored and restored the Palace complex Quetza-Mariposa, the Calle de los Muertos, the Pyramid of the Moon and finished work on the Pyramid of the Sun. A highway from Mexico City was also built. The site was opened to the public by President Adolfo López Mateos.

The site has been a source of revenue for the municipality as well as a source of controversy. INAH has classified much of the area into three sectors: A, B, and C. A includes the Calzada de los Muertos (Avenue of the Dead), pyramids and other structures within what is commonly thought of as the site. Sectors B and C are two peripheral rings around sector A. Each of these sectors have building and other land use restrictions, which depend on how far the center any given site is. These restrictions have come into conflict with development concerns.

The largest of these controversies occurred in the mid 2000s when Bodega Aurrerá, a subsidiary of Wal-Mart of Mexico, gained permissions to build a supermarket in the Purificación neighborhood, which is within Sector C. Municipal authorities and INAH granted permits for the projects with some restrictions. However, activists, including some high-profile names such as José Luis Cuevas, Francisco Toledo, Elena Poniatowska and Homero Aridjis, opposed the store's presence on cultural and economic grounds. However, the store was built and has been operating since 2005.

In 2008, the diocese of San Juan Teotihuacan was authorized by the Vatican. The first bishop, Guillermo Francisco Escobar Galicia, is a native of the Teotihuacan area.

In December 2009, about 300 members of the Sindicato Mexicano de Electricistas (SME), the nation's electricians’ union, sabotaged a substation at km 110 of the Teotihuacan-Tulancingo highway, blacking out power to about 45,000 people in various municipalities. SME and the federal government have been at odds over the privatization of electricity in the country. In 2015, Teotihuacán was integrated to the "Pueblos Mágicos" program.