Iximche

Declared a Guatemalan National Monument in the 1960s, Iximche -a pre-Columbian Mayan site- is located in Tecpan, a small community in the western highlands of Guatemala, was the capital of the Late Postclassic Kaqchikel Maya kingdom from 1470 until its abandonment in 1524. Faced with the increasingly belligerent expansionist aims of their K’iche’ rivals, the Kaqchikel moved their capital from present-day Chichicastenango to the more easily defended site of Iximche, sometime around A.D. 1470. The city was built at an altitude of 2,100 meters (7,000 ft) on a ridge surrounded by deep ravines. The region is located 88km from Guatemala City.