Tarascan state

The Tarascan state, the Purepecha Empire of Tzintzuntzan, was the second power of late Mesoamerica and the one enemy the Aztecs never beat. Founded in the early 14th century around Lake Patzcuaro in Michoacan, it grew by the leadership of the Irecha, the king at Tzintzuntzan, into a centralised network of tribute provinces covering Michoacan, eastern Jalisco, southern Guanajuato and western Guerrero. Purepecha armies, fighting with copper-tipped weapons and massed slingers, smashed Aztec invasions in 1478 and again later, holding the frontier at Taximaroa. The capital's great yacata pyramids, part temple and part palace, faced the lake its fishermen worked. Cazonci Tangaxuan surrendered to the Spanish in 1530 and was executed; in 1543 the kingdom became the governorship of Michoacan. The Purepecha language, an isolate spoken by more than a hundred thousand people today, and the lakeside towns of Patzcuaro and Tzintzuntzan keep the unconquered kingdom's name alive beneath the Irecha's palace platforms.