Xochicalco
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
Xochicalco is a fortified hilltop city in Morelos, central Mexico. When the power of Teotihuacan declined in the 7th and 8th centuries, people moved across Mesoamerica and competition for resources and trade routes led to towns with ramparts and moats. Xochicalco appears to have been founded in the second half of the 7th century by a confederation of settlements in what are now Guerrero, Mexico State and western Morelos.
The city was built by terracing a series of natural hills, and the Main Plaza on the highest point could be entered only through two defended porticoes. At its centre the Pyramid of the Plumed Serpents is carved with feathered serpents linked to Teotihuacan's Quetzalcoatl and with seated figures of Maya appearance. A causeway lined with 21 calendar altars leads to a ball court, and caves below the platform were used as an observatory.
The city was sacked and abruptly abandoned in the late 9th century. Antonio Alzate first described the ruins in 1777, and Leopoldo Batres restored the Pyramid of the Plumed Serpents in 1910. The area was declared an Archaeological Monuments Zone in 1994 and inscribed in 1999.
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).