page_title: Chunchucmil
section_title: Site size
hierarchical_section_title: Chunchucmil / Site characteristics / Site size
caption_attribution_description: English: NASA Airsar Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Digital Elevation Model (DEM) combined with aerial photography showing the pyramidal architecture of Chunchucmil, Yucatan.
context_page_description: Chunchucmil was once a large, sprawling pre-Columbian Maya city located in the western part of what is now the state of Yucatán, Mexico.
  Although the famous explorer and author John Lloyd Stephens traveled within a few kilometers of Chunchucmil during his historic journey across the Yucatán Peninsula, the archaeological site went relatively unnoticed by Maya scholars for more than a century because virtually no monuments or other grand sculptures have been found there. The lack of royal monuments, combined with other archaeological data, may indicate that Chunchucmil was not a city ruled by a single divine king, as most other Maya polities. Instead, it may have been a commercial center, organized by various lineages and focused upon funneling goods between regions—such as the trade between the Gulf of Mexico and the interior of the Yucatán Peninsula.
  Chunchucmil was most populous in the Middle Classical Period,
context_section_description: The exact size of Chunchucmil is currently being studied using aerial photography, satellite imagery, and survey transects by the Pakbeh Regional Economy Project (who have been working at Chunchucmil since the mid-1990s, under the direction of Dr. Bruce H. Dahlin).  Estimates range from 25 km² for the more compact urban settlement to around 64 km² for the city and its adjoining suburbs and farmsteads. In either case, this places the site of Chunchucmil among some of the largest and most densely settled ancient Maya polities.
caption: Digital Elevation Model combined with an aerial photograph showing pyramidal architecture of Chunchucmil
exif: {}