.png)
.webp)
These famous Mexican landmarks, from ancient pyramids to classical baroque architecture, still stun visitors today.
The ancient Chichen Itza was a sprawling Mayan city in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula built around 600-1200 CE. Its main attraction is the El Castillo pyramid, where shadows create the illusion of a serpent slithering down its steps during spring and fall equinoxes.
Teotihuacan is a massive ancient city near Mexico City that flourished from 100 BCE to 650 CE with pyramids aligned to the stars. However, it’s a dark spot in history, as historians still don’t know exactly who built it, why they abandoned it—or how its Avenue of the Dead precisely aligns with the Pleiades star cluster.
The ancient Mayan fortress of Tulum sits dramatically on a Caribbean cliffside in Quintana Roo. It’s known for its temple murals featuring a mysterious “descending god” figure. Some people think it depicts a falling astronaut.
Palenque is a jungle infested Mayan city in Chiapas that flourished between 600-800 CE. It contains King Pakal’s tomb whose sarcophagus lid sparked controversy when some archaeologists misinterpreted its celestial imagery as depicting the king piloting a spaceship.
Built atop a flattened mountain around 500 BCE, Monte Albán was the Zapotec civilization’s imposing capital for over a millennium. It features mysterious stone carvings called “Danzantes” that depict contorted figures once thought to be dancers but now believed to be tortured prisoners with mutilated bodies.
The Templo Mayor was the sacred heart of the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan. It was demolished during the Spanish conquest in 1521. Archaeologists have found over 7,000 ritual offerings, including complete jaguar skeletons, beneath modern Mexico City.
The Metropolitan Cathedral was Mexico City’s largest cathedral, built atop Aztec ruins between 1573 and 1813. The church is now gradually sinking into the ancient lakebed beneath it, requiring ongoing structural interventions to prevent its massive stone walls from toppling like a funhouse attraction.
Mexico City’s breathtaking Palacio de Bellas Artes, is a Art Nouveau cultural hub showcasing Diego Rivera murals and performances since 1934. The building sinks 2-4 centimeters annually into the unstable lakebed.
The Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City houses the miraculous tilma bearing the image of the Virgin Mary. Astonishingly, it has survived over 500 years despite being made of fragile cactus fibers that should have deteriorated within decades.
Chapultepec Castle is the only royal castle in the Americas, and it is now a museum of Mexican history. It features imported Austrian furniture, including Emperor Maximilian’s bathtub, which was carved from a single massive stone.
Uxmal is a Mayan city in Yucatán known for its intricate Puuc-style architecture and the Governor’s Palace. A local legend claims a dwarf magician built the magnificent Pyramid of the Magician overnight to avoid execution.
Coba, a sprawling Mayan city in Quintana Roo, houses the Nohoch Mul pyramid (the tallest in Yucatán at 137 feet) and features an extensive network of ancient stone roads (Jacob) stretching over 100 kilometers—longer than many modern highways.
El Tajín was a Totonac archaeological site in Veracruz, Mexico (also a name of a great spice); it was famous for its Pyramid of the Niches, which contains exactly 365 square recesses. It’s possible that it was designed to track the solar year, though archaeologists still debate their precise ceremonial function.
The Great Pyramid of Cholula in Puebla is the largest pyramid by volume in the world. Today, it is disguised beneath vegetation and topped by a Spanish colonial church, as locals mistook it for a natural hill until excavations revealed its true ancient Mesoamerican form.
Mitla was a Zapotec and Mixtec ceremonial site in Oaxaca. It’s known for its intricate geometric stone mosaics assembled without mortar—each stone precisely fitting like a puzzle piece in what locals believed was a gateway to the underworld.
Paquimé was a pre-Columbian adobe settlement in Chihuahua that thrived between 1200-1450 CE and featured multi-story dwellings and complex water systems. Archaeologists discovered specially designed macaw breeding facilities, revealing the site’s unexpected role in a thriving exotic bird trade network that extended into the American Southwest.
The once-powerful Maya city-state in Chiapas, Mexico, Yaxchilán, flourished between 350 and 810 CE and is renowned for its ornate stone temples and well-preserved hieroglyphic inscriptions documenting the city’s royal bloodline. The city practiced a bizarre ritual where rulers pierced their genitals to draw blood for sacred offerings.
Bonampak, a remote Mayan archaeological site in Chiapas, contains stunningly preserved murals from 790 CE that graphically depict warfare scenes, blood sacrifice, and torture—directly contradicting earlier scholarly notions of the Maya as peaceful astronomers and mathematicians.
The neo-Gothic Parish of San Miguel Arcángel in San Miguel de Allende features dramatic pink spires designed by self-taught mason Zeferino Gutiérrez, who remarkably based his 1880s architectural vision entirely on European cathedral postcards rather than formal training.
The Hospicio Cabañas was built in 1829 as Mexico’s first orphanage and hospital complex. It is a masterpiece of neoclassical architecture that served the vulnerable for nearly two centuries while housing José Clemente Orozco’s massive dome fresco “Man of Fire” — one of his greatest works.
The Santa Prisca Church in Taxco built between 1751 and 1758 with profits from the region’s silver mines, stands as a masterpiece of Mexican Baroque architecture despite its patron José de la Borda going bankrupt during its construction, famously declaring, “God gives to Borda, Borda gives to God.”
The Copper Canyon Railway, completed in 1961, is a marvel of Mexican engineering. It carves its way through the stunning Sierra Madre Occidental mountain range across 86 bridges and 37 tunnels, showcasing a canyon system that’s actually six times larger than Arizona’s Grand Canyon.
Dzibilchaltún is an ancient Mayan city in Yucatán used continuously for 3,000 years. It features the Temple of the Seven Dolls where sunlight passes directly through its doorways during equinoxes, creating a dramatic illumination effect that archaeologists believe served as an astronomical calendar.
El Rey is an ancient Mayan archaeological site in Cancún’s Hotel Zone. It contains a small but significant collection of structures, including a two-story ceremonial center where archaeologists discovered evidence of ritual ceremonies involving animal sacrifices and vibrant community gatherings around 1200-1500 CE.
Calakmul, a vast Mayan city-state hidden in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, dominated the region through the Classic Period (250-900 CE) with its impressive dual pyramids and abundant stelae. Archaeologists unearthed royal tombs containing jade masks that were so exquisite they’re now displayed at Fort San Miguel in Campeche.
.webp)
.webp)
.webp)