Studies of Mixtec place signs that have followed Caso's 1949 breakthrough have repeatedly shown how important the knowledge of contemporary Mixtec people is for understanding the books created by their ancestors.(3) In many cases, the "where" of the Mixtec past is also the where of the Mixtec present. Many places in the Mixteca are still called by the names they possessed in Precolumbian times. It is therefore possible to link features of the contemporary landscape--hills, rivers, even the archaeological ruins of palaces and temples--to their codical depictions painted five centuries ago. The pages that follow discuss how individualplace signs are read, as well as how the inventory of place signs in a codex allows us to reconstruct the geographic scope of ancient Mixtec politics.