The Maya lived in the area in Central America which now consists of Yucatan, Guatemala, Belize and southern Mexico (the Chiapas and Tabasco provinces). This whole area lies south of the tropic of Cancer, and north of the equator, and is about 900 kilometers in the east-west direction. Theirs was a true Stone Age Culture, although the Maya at the time of Spanish contact in the sixteenth century, did know about working with copper and gold. While the Spanish prized gold highly, the Maya venerated jade.
The landscape is very diverse. The Yucatan peninsula is a very flat, relatively young limestone area. The earth's crust pushes southward into the Guatemala highlands; as a result high ridges have formed which are covered in rainforest. To the south of the Central American highlands is a belt of active volcanoes, followed by a narrow strip of Pacific lowlands.
