Xochimilco, Story of a Landscape

An extensive area of great historical and ecological interest, known as Xochimilco, lies approximately 30 kilometers from the heart of Mexico City. There, in ancient times, its inhabitants developed and implemented an inventive and high-yielding form of cultivation by means of chinampas (small islands of fertile land surrounded by canals). These "floating gardens" are so astonishing that the area has been declared by UNESCO as belonging to the Cultural Heritage of Mankind. The landscape of Xochimilco bears unique and living testimony to a way of life which still prevails in the valley of Mexico since prehispanic times. The documentary tells the story of this landscape and its inhabitants from its establishment in the 10th Century to its present ecological demise.