Mexico

Mexico contributes the atlas's most complete record of what silver built and what it cost. Guanajuato repurposed its flood tunnels as roads so the surface could stay for people; Zacatecas is carved from pink volcanic stone; Taxco and Querétaro exist because of ore and the aqueducts that served it. Against that sit the pre-Columbian capitals and a state, Oaxaca, with sixteen recognised indigenous peoples and a cuisine that follows from them.