Chichen Itza Travel Guide Tourist Attractions in Mexico

Chichen Itza is the most famous of all the great Mayan cities. This is somewhat ironic because its most famous structures do not have a typical Classic Mayan architecture but show strong influences from other civilizations from Central Mexico.

The most famous landmark of Chichen Itza is the 99 feet (30 m) high Temple of Kukulkan, also referred to as El Castillo (the castle in Spanish). The temple contains many references to the important Mayan calendar. Each of El Castillo’s four sides has 91 steps which, when added together and including the temple platform , equals the 365 days of the solar year. Each of the nine terraces are divided in two, which makes 18, symbolizing the number of months in the Maya calendar. The terraces contain a total of 52 panels, referring to the 52-year cycle when both the solar and religious calendars converge.

Chichen Itza is the most developed of the many Mayan ruins and can get crowded. But the combination of grant scale monuments and the mysterious precise astronomical calculation in the buildings make Chichen Itza truly amazing.