It is the most important cultural venue in Mexico and one of the ten most prestigious museums of its type in the world. Inaugurated in 1964, it is a jewel of modern architecture designed by Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, conceived as a sanctuary to protect and display the vast legacy of the peoples of Mesoamerica.

Another of the jewels of this facility is the Dr. Eusebio Dávalos Hurtado National Library of Anthropology and History, the most complete of its kind in all of Latin America. In addition to the multiple titles on history, anthropology, archaeology, linguistics, ethnohistory and other related sciences, it safeguards codices, manuscripts of the Inquisition, 19th century newspapers, books from different religious orders (Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians, Jesuits, Carmelites), incunabula, specialized magazines, plans, maps, annals, prayer books and recorded testimonies of people who lived during the Revolution of 1910, as well as theses and current research.