Palenque

Palenque National Park was decreed in 1981 in northern Chiapas, in the first foothills of the Sierra de Chiapas above the Tabasco plain, and protects some 17 km² of tall evergreen rainforest that surrounds and envelops the archaeological zone of the same name.

Palenque, Lakamha in Maya, was one of the great cities of the Classic Maya period, at its height between the fifth and eighth centuries, and preserves some of the most refined architectural and sculptural complexes in Mesoamerica: the Temple of the Inscriptions, beneath which the tomb of the ruler K'inich Janaab' Pakal was found, the Palace with its tower and the Group of the Crosses. Only a small fraction of the settlement has been excavated; the rest remains under the forest, which makes the park's tree cover part of the site itself.

UNESCO inscribed the ensemble on the World Heritage List in 1987 under the name Pre-Hispanic City and National Park of Palenque, and the category of the inscription is CULTURAL, not natural or mixed, despite the property's name including the national park. The forest setting supports a characteristic tropical fauna — howler monkeys, whose roar is part of the experience of the site, toucans, parrots, bats and small cats — and numerous streams and waterfalls of calcareous water. Pressure on the park comes from deforestation around its perimeter and from very high visitor numbers concentrated in the archaeological zone.