Chapultepec Castle

The name Chapultepec comes from Nahuatl and means 'on the hill of the grasshopper'. Viceroy Bernardo de Gálvez ordered the building in 1785, and by 1833 it had become the Military College. On 13 September 1847, during the Mexican-American War, the young cadets remembered as the Niños Héroes, the Boy Heroes, died defending the castle; murals at the main entrance honour them.

From 1864 to 1867 Emperor Maximilian I and Empress Carlota lived here during the Second Mexican Empire, and European and Mexican architects remodelled the castle in a neoclassical style. From 1882 it served as the official residence of Mexico's presidents, until Lázaro Cárdenas moved to Los Pinos in 1934 and decided to turn the castle into the National Museum of History, which opened in 1944. Today visitors walk through rooms with historical, archaeological and ethnographic collections, past stained glass windows and formal gardens, up to the Caballero Alto watchtower. It is one of only two royal palaces in North America.

On Tiqets you can choose an entry ticket, entry with a guided tour, or a guided tour that combines the castle with the National Museum of Anthropology.