Chichen Itza

Where is Chichen Itza?

You will find it in Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico.

20.6831° N, 88.5686° W

The story behind it

Chichen Itza was one of the largest cities of the ancient Maya, built and expanded between roughly the 6th and 13th centuries in what is now Mexico. It blended local Maya traditions with ideas from other Mesoamerican cultures, especially the Toltecs from central Mexico, creating its distinctive mix of temples, ballcourts and pyramids. At its centre stands El Castillo, a pyramid dedicated to the feathered-serpent god Kukulcan, built with such precision that twice a year, at the spring and autumn equinox, sunlight and shadow create the illusion of a serpent slithering down its staircase. The city also has the largest ballcourt in the Americas, and a sacred sinkhole, or cenote, where the Maya threw offerings, including gold and jade, to their gods. Chichen Itza was mostly abandoned by the 1400s, long before Europeans arrived, and today it draws millions of visitors who climb its plazas and admire the carved stone serpents guarding El Castillo's staircases.

Find it on the globe

Chichen Itza is there as a little three-dimensional model of the building itself. 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.

How was it built?

Maya builders cut limestone blocks from quarries using stone tools, then dragged and lifted them into place using ramps, ropes, wooden rollers and levers, since the Maya had no metal tools, wheels or draft animals. El Castillo was actually built in layers: Maya architects built at least one earlier, smaller pyramid, then encased it completely inside a larger one, a technique used at other Maya sites too. Its nine terraces and four 91-step staircases were positioned with careful astronomical calculations.