Chichen Itza
This is probably one of the country’s most famous historical sites.
Located on the Yucatec peninsula, Chichen Itza was once a large pre-Colombian city built by the Mayan people. It’s now dominated by the El Castillo pyramid, the Warriors’ Temple, and the circular observatory called El Caracol.
Throughout its 1,000-year-old history this city boasted the most diverse population in the Mayan world. Mayan people incorporated many ethnic groups, a fact which is made clear by the different architectural styles of monuments.
In 2007, Chichen Itza was nominated as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. According to UNESCO, ‘its monuments, particularly in the northern group, which includes the Great Ball Court, Temple of Kukulkan and Temple of the Warriors, are among the undisputed masterpieces of Mesoamerican architecture because of the beauty of their proportions, the refinement of their construction and the splendour of their sculpted decorations’.