Sierra del Lacandón
The Sierra del Lacandón is a hill country up to 636 m high in the north of the Mexican state Chiapas or in the northwest of the Peten department in Guatemala .
geography
The soils in the approximately 100 to 635 m high Sierra del Lacandón, which extends from the northwest ( Palenque , Mexico) to the southeast ( Las Cruces , Guatemala), consist essentially of weathered limestone . In the south-north direction the Río Usumacinta cuts through the area. Extensive forests spread here thousands of years ago, but on the Mexican side they have already been largely destroyed by increasing clearing and the legal and illegal settlement of people. On the Guatemalan side, the situation is a little better, because the settlements are rather small and scattered over a large area. Often only the banks of the rivers give an impression of the formerly dense forest.
Sierra del Lacandón National Park
Only on the Guatemalan side does the “Sierra del Lacandón National Park”, which was established in 1990 and encompass an area of over 2000 km², extend along the Río Usumacinta . Here live u. a. Howler monkeys , spider monkeys , bumpy crocodiles and probably some of the now rare jaguars , long-tailed cats and tapirs , as well as numerous species of birds and reptiles.
Cultural history
The Maya site of Piedras Negras , which was abandoned over a thousand years ago, belongs to the Sierra del Lacandón region ; on the edge of the national park on the Mexican bank of the Usumacinta are the archaeological sites of Yaxchilán and Bonampak .
See also
On the Mexican side, the Montes Azules biosphere reserve, bounded by the Río Lacantún , is a little further south ; part of it is the Selva Lacandona .