This article is about the historic cities. In the science fiction television series Stargate SG-1

Stargate SG-1

Stargate SG-1 is a Canadian-American adventure and military science fiction television series and part of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Stargate franchise. The show, created by Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner, is based on the 1994 feature film Stargate by Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich...

, the "Tollan" are an advanced human civilization; see: Tollan (Stargate).

Tollan, Tolan, or Tolán is a name used for the capital cities of two empire

Empire

The term empire derives from the Latin imperium . Politically, an empire is a geographically extensive group of states and peoples united and ruled either by a monarch or an oligarchy....

s of Pre-Columbian

Pre-Columbian

The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...

 Mesoamerica

Mesoamerica

Mesoamerica is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and...

; first for Teotihuacan

Teotihuacan

Teotihuacan – also written Teotihuacán, with a Spanish orthographic accent on the last syllable – is an enormous archaeological site in the Basin of Mexico, just 30 miles northeast of Mexico City, containing some of the largest pyramidal structures built in the pre-Columbian Americas...

, and later for the Toltec

Toltec

The Toltec culture is an archaeological Mesoamerican culture that dominated a state centered in Tula, Hidalgo in the early post-classic period of Mesoamerican chronology...

 capital, Tula-Hidalgo, both in 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 name has also been applied to the Postclassic Mexican settlement Cholula

Cholula (Mesoamerican site)

Cholula , was an important city of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, dating back to at least the 2nd century BCE, with settlement as a village going back at least some thousand years earlier. The great site of Cholula stands just west of the modern city of Puebla. Its immense pyramid exceeds the Pyramid...

.

The name Tōllān means "Among the reeds

Reed bed

Reed beds are natural habitats found in floodplains, waterlogged depressions andestuaries. Reed beds are part of a succession from young reed colonising open water or wet ground through a gradation of increasingly dry ground...

" in the Nahuatl

Nahuatl

Nahuatl is thought to mean "a good, clear sound" This language name has several spellings, among them náhuatl , Naoatl, Nauatl, Nahuatl, Nawatl. In a back formation from the name of the language, the ethnic group of Nahuatl speakers are called Nahua...

 language, with the figurative sense of a densely populated "place where people are thick as reeds". Names with the same meaning were used in Maya

Maya language

A Maya language is one of a group of languages spoken by the Maya peoples of Mesoamerica.Maya language may also refer to:* Yucatec Maya language or Maya, a Mayan language spoken in the Yucatán Peninsula...

 and other native Mexican languages.

Teotihuacan seems to have been the first city known by this name. After the collapse of the Teotihuacan empire, 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...

 broke into various petty states. The Toltec created the first sizable Mexican empire after the fall of Teotihuacan, and their capital was referred to by the same name as a reference to the earlier greatness of Teotihuacan.

In 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...

 accounts at the time of the arrival of the Conquistador

Conquistador

Conquistadors were Spanish soldiers, explorers, and adventurers who brought much of the Americas under the control of Spain in the 15th to 16th centuries, following Europe's discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus in 1492...

es, Teotihuacan and the Toltec capital sometimes seem to be confused and conflated.

The epithet "Tollan" was also sometimes applied to any great metropolis

Metropolis

A metropolis is a very large city or urban area which is a significant economic, political and cultural center for a country or region, and an important hub for regional or international connections and communications...

 or capital. Cholula

Cholula

Cholula is a city and district located in the center west of the state of Puebla, next to the city of Puebla de Zaragoza, in central Mexico. Cholula is best known for its Great Pyramid, with the Nuestra Señora de los Remedios sanctuary on top and its numerous churches...

, for example, was sometimes called "Tollan Cholula", and the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán was likewise given the title "Tollan". The Mixtec

Mixtec

The Mixtec are indigenous Mesoamerican peoples inhabiting the Mexican states of Oaxaca, Guerrero and Puebla in a region known as La Mixteca. The Mixtecan languages form an important branch of the Otomanguean language family....

 translation of this, Ñuu Co'yo is still the Mixtec name for Mexico City

Mexico City

Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...

 to this day.

Tollan in Mesoamerican mythology

Tollan is the name given to the mythical place of origin in many Mesoamerican traditions, including those of the Aztecs and the K'iche' Maya

Maya civilization

The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...

. In the K'iche' epic Popul Vuh, the first people created are gathered at Tollan, the place of seven caves, where they receive their languages and their gods.