Maya Biosphere Reserve

Declared in 1990, the Maya Biosphere Reserve protects the largest continuous block of rainforest in Central America, forming with the neighbouring reserves of Mexico and Belize the second largest rainforest corridor in the hemisphere after Amazonia. Within it, the lost city of El Mirador — reachable only after several days' expedition on foot from the village of Carmelita — holds La Danta, a pyramid which, at 72 metres high and with an estimated volume greater than that of any Egyptian pyramid, is considered the most voluminous structure the Maya civilisation ever built, dated several centuries before the rise of Tikal.