The process that led to the disappearance of the lake system in modern Greater Mexico City was very long, and actually began before the arrival of the Spanish and finished well after the independence. Since the arrival of the first Chichimeca migrations to the Valley of Mexico, the chinampa system was developed, a chinampa was an artificial island where crops could be grown. This system was further developed with the arrival of the Mexica, who built their capital, Mexico-Tenochtitlan, almost entirely on top of chinampas. The growing population of Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco required more and more chinampas to be built to feed the twin cities. This put a strain on the lake that began its transformation into shallow marshes and swamps. The Mexica built a system of dams that prevented the city from flooding. During the war against the Spanish and their allies, the Spanish besieged the city and destroyed the dams, accelerating the fall of the city. After the conquest, Cortez was advised to establish his capital in what is now southern Mexico City, in Coyoacán. However, he decided to establish himself in Mexico-Tenochtitlan, now renamed as simply Mexico City. For that purpose, the Spanish rebuilt most of the original infrastructure of the city, including the aqueduct, the roads that connected the city to the mainland, and most of the city. But they didn't rebuilt the dams. Over the next years, Mexico City flooded again and again. In 1629, the city was completely flooded, and remain under two meters of water for five years. While some authorities advised the capital to be moved elsewhere and Mexico City to be abandoned, the colonial authorities finally decided to save the city, and to drain the water of the lakes to the north. Over the next centuries, the city continued to flood, in spite of the many drains that were built to take the water elsewhere. The tumultuous political atmosphere in Mexico in the years after the independence prevented the construction of other projects until the pacification of Mexico in the late XIX century, and the Great Drain Canal, a project first proposed by Alexander Von Humboldt in 1804, was finally inaugurated in 1900. What remained were small pockets of water that were slowly dried as the city grew. The area of Xochimilco, were some chinampas remain mostly as a tourist attraction, as well as Chalco are all what remains of what once was the Lake of Texcoco.