The National Palace of Mexico City is the chair of the federal executive power in Mexico.

The building was constructed in 1563, after the Conquest of Mexico on the land that was occupied by the house of Hernán Cortés built in 1523. The original use of the building was that of accommodation of the viceroy. The first viceroy to live there was Luis de Velasco.

Later the building was renovated to accommodate the courts and the prison of the Royal Court. The original building, medieval-looking, began to take its present appearance of Baroque construction, after several fires that have taken place in the seventeenth century, the work was completed only in the following century.

In 1821 the building was renamed after the Independence War of Mexico, since then adopting the name of the National Palace. The building housed the three powers of the country: the executive, legislative and judicial. The latter two will later be transferred to other buildings in the city. new reforms to the palace were made during the nineteenth century:

• 1852 ordered by President Mariano Arista
• During the Second Mexican Empire ordered by Emperor Maximilian of Habsburg.
• During the Empire Hapsburg palace changed its name temporarily in the Imperial Palace.

In 1863 the emperor changed his residence at the Castle of Chapultepec, leaving the Imperial Palace as a merely administrative building and protocol.

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