Tikal
Ancient site
A city of the Maya in the jungle of Guatemala, with temples that rise above the trees.
Tikal was one of the largest cities of the Maya. Around the year 700 tens of thousands of people lived here, among palaces, squares and steep temple pyramids of limestone.
Around 900 the city was abandoned, and the rainforest grew over it. The tallest temple is about 65 metres high; from the top you look out over a sea of treetops with other temples sticking through.
- the tallest temple
- 65 m
- buildings found, roughly
- 3,000
- World Heritage since
- 1979
- 1
Howler monkeys roar in the trees around the temples. You hear them from kilometres away.
- 2
There is no river here. The Maya collected rain in large reservoirs they dug and lined with clay.
- 3
The view over the treetops was used in the first Star Wars film, as a planet of the rebels.
Question 1 of 2
Who built Tikal?
- Chichén ItzáA Maya city with a pyramid that works as a calendar.
- TeotihuacanA city of pyramids so old that even the Aztecs did not know who built it.
- Panama CanalA shortcut for ships between the Atlantic and the Pacific.
- MississippiThe great river that runs down the middle of the United States.
It is in Guatemala.
Read about Guatemala