Around a.d. 1000 a political empire centered at Tututepec on Oaxaca's Pacific Coast formed and rose to prominence under the leadership of the great Mixtec lord 8 Deer. The extensive (25,000 km2) and ethnically diverse Tututepec empire was integrated by a system of conquest and alliance, tribute and service, military conscription, trade, a three- to four-level political hierarchy, and a simple administrative network. It was further linked by a system of royal marital alliance and trade to the Mixtec states in the Mixteca Aha and Mixteca Baja in the mountains to the north. The empire, smaller but more tightly integrated than the Chulhua-Mexica empire and smaller but more loosely integrated than the Purepecha (Tarascan) empire, dominated the Oaxaca Coast until the arrival of the Spaniards in the early 1520s.