Find Me Mexico
Teotihuacan
Teotihuacan Group Tour
from $1,000 MXN
Teotihuacan Private Tour
$2,800 MXN per person
Hot Air Balloon at Sunrise
from $3,200 MXN
In Mexico City
Anthropology Museum TourComing soon
Lucha Libre NightComing soon
Book a tour
It's one of the main stops in my Teotihuacan guide, together with the Pyramid of the Moon, the Avenue of the Dead and the Temple of the Feathered Serpent. And if you're still planning your trip, my Plan Your Visit page has the hours, tickets and how to get there.
The Pyramid of the Sun is about 66 meters tall, which is 216 feet, and the base is about 220 by 230 meters (720 by 760 feet).
You'll see different numbers online, from 63.5 to 65.5 meters, because people measured it at different times and from different points. I use the number from Encyclopaedia Britannica, 66 meters.
It's the biggest building at Teotihuacan and one of the largest pyramids of its kind in the Americas. But it's about half as tall as the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt, which is 146 meters.
The Pyramid of the Moon is shorter, about 43 meters. But it sits on higher ground, so when you look down the Avenue of the Dead the tops of both pyramids look almost the same height, and a lot of people don't notice that until our guide points it out :)
If you like numbers, I put all of them on my Teotihuacan facts and statistics page with the source for each one.
It was built around 100 CE, so it's almost 2,000 years old. Some archaeologists think it was finished a little later, around 200 CE, and either way it's more than 1,000 years older than anything the Aztecs built.
They built it in two big phases. The first phase made it almost as big as it is today, and the second one finished it and put an altar on top, but that altar is gone now.
The people of Teotihuacan built it, and we still don't know for sure what language they spoke or what they called themselves. The city started around 100 BCE, and at its peak, around 500 CE, between 125,000 and 200,000 people lived here.
The name Pyramid of the Sun comes from the Aztecs. They found the city in ruins in the 1400s, hundreds of years after it was abandoned, and they named it Teotihuacan, which means "the place where the gods were created". So the name is Aztec, but the pyramid is NOT Aztec, and that's the mix-up I hear the most.
If you want the full story of the city, how it grew and why people left, read my Teotihuacan history page.
No, you can't climb the Pyramid of the Sun right now. The climb closed in 2020, and INAH, the government institute that takes care of the site, kept it closed in 2026. The state government has talked about opening it again, but there's no date yet.
But you CAN climb the Pyramid of the Moon up to the first section, and from up there you can see the Sun and the whole Avenue of the Dead in front of you.
And don't worry, you can still walk all around the base of the Sun and take your photos right in front of it, and our guides take you to the good photo spots. You can read more about the climbing rules in my can you climb the Teotihuacan pyramids post.
And if you want to see it from above, you can take a sunrise hot air balloon. You fly over the Sun and the Moon for about 45 minutes and you can see the whole old city from up there.
When me and my team stop at the Pyramid of the Sun, these are the four things we explain, because most people walk right past them.
In 1971 archaeologists found a cave right under the pyramid, about 6 meters below the center, with the entrance at the foot of the main stairs. A lot of archaeologists think the people of Teotihuacan built the pyramid on top of the cave on purpose, because caves were sacred places for them. You can't go inside, it's closed to the public.
Between 1905 and 1910 an archaeologist called Leopoldo Batres restored the pyramid in a big hurry, and he added a fifth level that wasn't there before. He also took off a lot of the original stones on the outside. So the shape you see today isn't exactly the shape the people of Teotihuacan built, and it's one of my favorite things to tell people because nobody expects it.
Archaeologists found burials of children at the corners of the pyramid, and they think these were part of a ceremony when it was built. Inside they also found obsidian arrowheads and small human figures.
The pyramid lines up with Cerro Gordo, the mountain to the north, and with the sunrise and sunset on certain days of the year. Also, the center of the city follows the same grid, including the Avenue of the Dead, so when you walk down the avenue you're walking on a plan that was made around this pyramid.
The Pyramid of the Sun is inside the Teotihuacan archaeological zone, about 50 km (30 miles) northeast of Mexico City, which is about 1 hour by car. The site is open every day from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, last entry is 4:30 PM, and the opening hours post has the details. The ticket is $210 MXN (about $12 USD) if you're not Mexican or a resident.
You can get there by bus, Uber or with a tour, and I explain each one in my how to get to Teotihuacan guide. For every price in one place, see how much it costs to go to Teotihuacan, and the Teotihuacan map shows where the Sun is from each gate.
I recommend to get there as early as you can. There's NO shade around the pyramid, and by noon the sun is really strong and the big tour buses start showing up. So bring a hat, sunscreen and water, and wear good shoes because you'll walk a LOT. My what to wear to Teotihuacan list has everything to pack.
Our full tour of the Sun, the Moon and the Feathered Serpent temple takes 4 hours, and my how much time you need at Teotihuacan post helps if you're fitting it into a busy day. And if you're going on the spring equinox, March 20 or 21, read my spring equinox guide first because it gets VERY crowded.
Every one of our Teotihuacan tours stops at the Pyramid of the Sun. They're all in English, we pick you up and drop you off at your hotel or Airbnb, your tickets are included and we never stop at tourist trap shops.
Every tour has our 100% "Love It or Your Money Back" guarantee, and you can cancel or reschedule for FREE up to 24 hours before.
If you want a Teotihuacan tour or a sunrise hot air balloon above the pyramids... that's what me and my team do. You can compare every tour side by side and pick the one that fits you :)
