The Aztec Empire existed in the central Mexican region between c. 1325 and 1521, and was formed by the triple alliance of the "tlatoque" (the Nahuatl term for "speaker", also translated in English as "king") of three city-states: Tlacopan, Texcoco, and the capital of the empire, Tenochtitlan. While the lineage of Tenochtitlan's kings continued after the city's fall to the Spanish on 13 August 1521, they reigned as puppet rulers of the King of Spain until the death of the last dynastic "tlatoani", Luis de Santa María Nanacacipactzin, on 27 December 1565.