New Mexico

National Parks: Carlsbad Caverns National Park, Chaco National Historical Park, Pecos National Historical Park
State Parks: Bluewater Lake, Bottomless Lakes, Brantley Lake, Caballo Lake, Cimarron Canyon, City of Rocks, Clayton Lake, Conchas Lake, Coyote Creek, Eagle Nest Lake, Elephant Butte Lake, El Vado Lake, Fenton Lake, Heron Lake, Hyde Memorial, Leasburg Dam, Living Desert Zoo & Gardens, Manzano Mountains, Mesilla Valley Bosque, Morphy Lake, Navajo Lake, Oasis, Oliver Lee Memorial, Pancho Villa, Percha Dam, Rio Grande Nature Center, Rockhound, Santa Rosa Lake, Storrie Lake, Sugarite Canyon, Ute Lake, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Villanueva

Chaco Canyon National Historical Park

Chaco Culture National Historical Park preserves one of America's most significant and fascinating cultural and historic areas. From AD 850 to 1250, Chaco Canyon served as a major urban center for the Ancestral Puebloan culture. Remarkable for its monumental public and ceremonial buildings, engineering feats, astronomy, artistic achievements and distinctive architecture, it served as a hub of ceremony, trade and administration for the prehistoric Four Corners area for 400 years—unlike anything before or since.

To construct the buildings, along with the associated Chacoan roads, ramps, dams, and mounds required a great deal of well organized and skillful planning, designing, resource gathering and construction. The Chacoan people combined pre-planned architectural designs, astronomical alignments, geometry, landscaping and engineering to create an ancient urban center of spectacular public architecture—one that still amazes and inspires us a thousand years later.

Chaco Canyon National Historical Park
P.O. Box 220
Nageezi, NM 87037
Phone: (505) 786-7014
www.nps.gov/chcu/

Contact New Mexico Tourism Department | Disclaimer & Use | Press | NM Links & Business Directory | Request Visitors Guide