Palenque map

Layout of Palenque

There are two Palenques 8 km apart. The town, properly Santo Domingo de Palenque, stands at about 60 m on the flat where the Gulf coastal plain of Tabasco runs out against the northern edge of the Chiapas hills. It was founded as a Dominican mission in 1567 and stayed small until the ruins and the road brought traffic. Its plan is simple: a central square with the parish church, a main street running west that becomes the site road, and at the western entrance the Maya head sculpture on a roundabout that marks the turn.

Two long-distance roads meet here. Federal Highway 186 crosses the lowlands east–west, linking Villahermosa 150 km away to Escárcega and the Yucatán Peninsula. Federal Highway 199 branches south from it and climbs into the mountains through Ocosingo to San Cristóbal de las Casas — 210 km that take about five hours because of the gradients and the bends. The ADO terminal is on the main avenue near the highway junction, Palenque International (PQM) is 5 km north-east of the centre, and the Tren Maya station outside town is the western end of the whole line.

The archaeological site lies west and slightly south, where the ground starts to rise. The road to it passes the La Cañada district, a strip of small hotels and restaurants under trees on the town's western edge, then the site museum, then the boundary of Palenque National Park, protected since 1981. The ruins themselves sit on a natural terrace at roughly 100–200 m, backed by forested ridges, with the Tabasco plain visible north from the top of the temples — the reason the Maya built here.

Distances from Palenque

The Maya city and the waterfalls

Palenque was a Classic Maya capital, known to its own people as Lakamha'. It rose under K'inich Janaab' Pakal, who took the throne in 615 at the age of twelve and ruled until 683, and under his son K'inich Kan B'alam II; it was largely abandoned by about 800. The Temple of the Inscriptions, roughly 23 m high, is Pakal's funerary pyramid, and the three panels inside its summit temple carry one of the longest hieroglyphic texts in the Maya world, recording nearly two centuries of dynastic history. In 1952 Alberto Ruz Lhuillier cleared a stairway packed with rubble down to a vaulted chamber under the pyramid's base and found the sarcophagus intact.

Opposite stands the Palace, a warren of courtyards on a single platform with a four-storey square tower unlike anything else in Maya architecture. Behind it the Temples of the Cross, the Foliated Cross and the Sun ring a plaza on the slope, their roof combs still carrying stucco. The Río Otulum runs through the centre of the site inside a corbel-vaulted aqueduct. Only a small fraction of the city has been cleared — well over a thousand structures have been mapped under the surrounding forest — and it was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. The archaeological sites map places it among the other Maya capitals.

Highway 199 south is a route of water. Misol-Ha, 20 km out, drops about 35 m in a single fall into a round pool, with a ledge path running behind the curtain. Agua Azul, 65 km out, is a staircase of travertine terraces on the Río Xanil, coloured pale turquoise by dissolved limestone; the colour fades to brown for days after heavy rain. Further into the Lacandón forest to the south-east, the murals of Bonampak and the riverside city of Yaxchilán sit on the Usumacinta, Mexico's largest river by volume — see the rivers map, the Southern Mexico map, the climate map and the road map.

Questions about Palenque

Where is Palenque on the map of Mexico?

In the north-east of Chiapas, where the Gulf lowlands of Tabasco meet the first hills of the Chiapas highlands. The town is on Highway 199, about 150 km from Villahermosa and 210 km from San Cristóbal de las Casas.

How far is the town from the ruins?

The archaeological site is 8 km west of the town, about 15 minutes. Colectivo vans run the road all day, passing the site museum and the National Park entrance on the way.

Whose tomb is in the Temple of the Inscriptions?

K'inich Janaab' Pakal, who ruled Palenque from 615 to 683. Alberto Ruz Lhuillier found the sealed stairway inside the pyramid in 1949 and reached the burial chamber in 1952; the carved sarcophagus lid is still in place, and the jade mask and jewellery are in the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City.

Does the Maya Train stop at Palenque?

Yes — Palenque is the western terminus of the Tren Maya, the start of the line that runs east through Escárcega towards Campeche, Mérida and Cancún. Palenque also has its own airport, PQM.

What is the best time to visit Palenque?

November to March, the drier and slightly cooler months. The site is in rainforest at about 60–200 m and gets over 2,000 mm of rain a year, most of it between June and October, when afternoon downpours are routine.