Lake Chalco was an endorheic

Endorheic

An endorheic basin is a closed drainage basin that retains water and allows no outflow to other bodies of water such as rivers or oceans...

 lake formerly located in the Valley of Mexico

Valley of Mexico

The Valley of Mexico is a highlands plateau in central Mexico roughly coterminous with the present-day Distrito Federal and the eastern half of the State of Mexico. Surrounded by mountains and volcanoes, the Valley of Mexico was a centre for several pre-Columbian civilizations, including...

 and was important for human development in central Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

. The lake was named after the city of Chalco

Chalco (municipality)

Chalco de Díaz Covarrubias is a city that is municipal seat of the surrounding municipality of Chalco. It lies in the eastern part of the state of México, just east of the Federal District of Mexico and is considered part of the Mexico City metropolitan area.-The city:Its church was constructed in...

 on its eastern shore.

Lake Chalco and the other Mexican great lakes (the brackish lakes Texcoco

Lake Texcoco

Lake Texcoco was a natural lake formation within the Valley of Mexico. The Aztecs built the city of Tenochtitlan on an island in the lake. The Spaniards built Mexico City over Tenochtitlan...

, Zumpango and Xaltocan and the freshwater Xochimilco

Xochimilco

Xochimilco is one of the sixteen delegaciones or boroughs within Mexican Federal District. The borough is centered on the formerly independent city of Xochimilco, which was established on what was the southern shore of Lake Xochimilco in the pre-Hispanic period...

) formed the ancient Basin of Mexico lake system. These lakes were home to many Mesoamerican cultures including the Toltecs and the Aztecs.

Lake Chalco itself had a fresh water

Fresh Water

Fresh Water is the debut album by Australian rock and blues singer Alison McCallum, released in 1972. Rare for an Australian artist at the time, it came in a gatefold sleeve...

 hydrologic structure due in large part to the artesian springs lining its south shore. This allowed extensive chinampa

Chinampa

Chinampa is a method of ancient Mesoamerican agriculture which used small, rectangle-shaped areas of fertile arable land to grow crops on the shallow lake beds in the Valley of Mexico.-Description:...

 beds to be cultivated through the Aztec era. After the Spanish conquest of Mexico

Spanish conquest of Mexico

The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire was one of the most important campaigns in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The invasion began in February 1519 and was acclaimed victorious on August 13, 1521, by a coalition army of Spanish conquistadors and Tlaxcalan warriors led by Hernán Cortés...

 these beds fell into disuse and were largely abandoned.

Starting during the Aztec

Aztec

The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...

 era and continuing into 20th century, efforts were made to drain Lake Chalco and her sister lakes in order to avoid periodic flooding and to provide for expansion. The only one of these lakes still in existence is a diminished Lake Xochimilco.

Lake Chalco and Lake Xochimilco

Lake Xochimilco

Lake Xochimilco is an ancient endorheic lake located in the Valley of Mexico, part of a series of lakes, which included the brackish Lake Texcoco, Lake Zumpango, and Lake Xaltocan and the fresh water Lake Chalco...

 were the original habitat of the axolotl

Axolotl

The axolotl , Ambystoma mexicanum, is a neotenic salamander, closely related to the Tiger Salamander. Larvae of this species fail to undergo metamorphosis, so the adults remain aquatic and gilled. It is also called ajolote...

.