Between 1519 and 1572 Spanish conquistadors, led by figures such as Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro and aided by indigenous allies and Old World disease, overthrew the Aztec and Inca empires. The fall of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan in 1521 and of Inca Cuzco saw the conquerors raze and rebuild these centres as colonial Mexico City and a reordered Cuzco, alongside new foundations such as Lima. Spanish authorities laid out towns according to royal ordinances around a central plaza.
It superimposed the Spanish colonial plaza-and-grid town, codified in the Laws of the Indies, onto and beside indigenous urban centres, making it the most widely reproduced city form across the Americas.