Monte Alban Site Map and Layout

The site is a levelled rectangle 300 metres long, with named structures on all four sides. The single biggest improvement you can make to a visit is knowing which is which before you walk out onto it. If you would rather have someone point at them, a Monte Alban private tour gives you a guide who will.

Where Monte Alban sits in the Valley of Oaxaca

The Valley of Oaxaca is not one valley but three arms meeting near the modern city. The ruins stand on a ridge at that junction, about 400 metres above the floor and eight kilometres west of Oaxaca de Juarez. From the plaza you can see down all three arms at once, which is almost certainly why the ridge was chosen.

That position is also why the light works the way it does. There is nothing between the plaza and the horizon in any direction, so the sun is on you from the moment it clears the eastern ridge until it drops behind the western one.

Santa Cruz Xoxocotlan and the four municipalities the zone covers

The visitor entrance stands in Santa Cruz Xoxocotlan, the municipality immediately south-west of the city. The protected zone is much larger than the part you walk through. It covers 2,078 hectares across four municipalities, taking in the terraced slopes on every side of the hill.

That figure is worth carrying up with you. The plaza is the ceremonial core of a city that covered the whole mountain. The terraces stepping down below the platforms are where its thirty-five thousand people actually lived.

The Main Plaza, side by side

Stand at the entrance to the Main Plaza with the North Platform on your left, and this is what you have.

A walking order that saves you crossing twice

The plaza is 300 metres long with nothing to shelter under. A route that doubles back costs you real effort in real heat. This one does not.

1. Straight down the east side to the South Platform. Climb it first, while you are fresh and the light is low.
2. Down onto the plaza floor and across to Building J in the centre.
3. West side northwards: Systems IV and M, then Los Danzantes.
4. The North Platform and its staircase at the far end.
5. Back down the east side past El Palacio to the ball court.
6. Out to the terraces and the tombs if you still have the time and the water.
7. The site museum by the entrance on your way out.

Reverse it in the afternoon so the sun is behind you for the long views rather than in front.

Beyond the plaza: the terraces and the tombs

North of the main group the ground falls away into the terracing that carried the residential city. The entrances to the painted tombs are cut into it. The interiors are restricted, but the walk out is open and almost nobody makes it.

This is where to go if the plaza is busy. It is the quietest ground on the hill, and it gives the clearest view of the engineering. That is the part of the site easiest to stand on top of and never notice.

The entrance building: museum, shop and where the coaches stop

Everything that is not archaeology is at the entrance, below the plaza. That means the ticket window, the site museum, a shop, a small cafe, the toilets and the car park where the coaches turn. Nothing at all is sold out on the plaza.

Fill a water bottle before you walk up. The walk back down for one is the walk you will resent. The interpretation board by the entrance carries the plan of the whole site and is worth two minutes before you go through.