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From Our World to Theirs

The Maya Culture Today

At the present time five or six million Maya still occupy the same parts of Central America that were theirs in ancient times. To say that the Maya civilization "disappeared" is inaccurate.

Their land today consists of the lowlands of the Mexican states of Campeche, Yucatan, and Quintana Roo and part of the states of Tabasco and Chiapas. It also includes Belize, parts of El Salvador and Honduras, and over a million Maya remain in Guatemala today.

As Maya populations have become more modern, their culture, language, and religious practices have often been abandoned. Maya religion today is a hybrid of Catholicism and ancient Maya beliefs and rituals.

Twelve hundred years ago, at the height of the Late Classic Period (AD 600-900), the total Maya population may have been as high as twenty million. In the 1970s and 80s there were tens of thousands of deaths and "disappearances" of Maya, and hundreds of thousands have abandoned their homelands.

	At the present time five or six million Maya still occupy the same parts of Central America that were theirs in ancient times. To say that the Maya civilization "disappeared" is inaccurate.
Their land today consists of the lowlands of the Mexican states of Campeche, Yucatan, and Quintana Roo and part of the states of Tabasco and Chiapas. It also includes Belize, parts of El Salvador and Honduras, and over a million Maya remain in Guatemala today.
	As Maya populations have become more modern, their culture, language, and religious practices have often been abandoned. Maya religion today is a hybrid of Catholicism and ancient Maya beliefs and rituals.
Twelve hundred years ago, at the height of the Late Classic Period (AD 600-900), the total Maya population may have been as high as twenty million. In the 1970s and 80s there were tens of thousands of deaths and "disappearances" of Maya, and hundreds of thousands have abandoned their homelands.