Chichén Itzá

Chichén Itzá was an exemplary Mayan capital which flourished from the ninth to the thirteenth century CE. Likely named after the nearby deep cenote (sinkhole) that was sacred to the Maya, Chichén Itzá covered 25 kilometers with religious, ceremonial, and commercial structures. The size, diversity, and caliber of these structures marked Chichén Itzá as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988, and today hundreds of thousands of visitors come to the Yucatan peninsula to experience the extraordinary Mayan El Castillo, observatory, and ball court of Chichén Itzá