Volcán Tajumulco

Where is Volcán Tajumulco?

Volcán Tajumulco is part of the Sierra Madre de Chiapas.

You will find it in: Guatemala.

Summit: 15.083° N, 91.883° W

The story behind it

Tajumulco is a stratovolcano built from andesite and dacite lava, and it sits on top of a large curved cliff whose origin geologists still puzzle over. Its two summits lie along a line running northwest to southeast, and one of them holds a crater only 50 to 70 metres across. Nobody has ever confirmed an eruption here: reports from 1765, 1821, 1863 and 1893 exist, but none of them could be pinned down, and the 1765 event may have been a rock avalanche instead. Sources also disagree about how tall the volcano is, giving 4 203 m in some places and about 4 220 m in others. Most walkers start near the hamlet of Tuichán and need roughly five hours, crossing fields and then a pine forest before the last stony slope. The air is clearest from October to March; for the rest of the year cloud often swallows the whole mountain. Nights at the summit are cold enough that hikers carry warm clothes and a tent.

Find it on the globe

Volcán Tajumulco is there as a small peak with its own shape — a horn, a ridge, a volcano — standing on the surface. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.

It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.