Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Biosphere Reserve
The number of Wikipedia languages with an article is our measure of how widely known a site is. How many people have stood at a site or want to go will be shown once enough people use the app.
Seals, your want-to-go list and the year you stood here are kept in the iPhone app.
How it came to be
The Tehuacán and Cuicatlán valleys, spanning the states of Puebla and Oaxaca, form the arid or semi-arid zone with the richest biodiversity in North America. They are one of the main centres of diversification of the cactus family, with the densest columnar cactus forests in the world. Of the 70 columnar cactus species recorded in Mexico, 45 grow here.
The valley also holds a long human record. Archaeological remains show early crop domestication, and its water system of canals, wells, aqueducts and dams is the oldest on the continent. That water management allowed farming settlements to emerge.
The biosphere reserve covers 490,186 hectares across 21 municipalities in the two states. The World Heritage property has three components, Zapotitlán-Cuicatlán, San Juan Raya and Purrón, and was inscribed on 2 July 2018 as the originary habitat of Mesoamerica.
Data: Wikidata (CC0). Photos: Wikimedia Commons, under each photo’s license. Prototype; may contain errors. We measure usage anonymously to improve the app (PostHog, EU).