Teotihuacan Facts and Statistics

At its peak the city covered about 20 km², which is 8 square miles. And what you walk through today is only the center of it.

The area UNESCO protects is 250 hectares, and there's a much bigger buffer zone around it where building is controlled. So when you stand on the Avenue of the Dead, a LOT of the old city is still under the fields and the towns around you.

The city started around 100 BCE, so it's more than 2,100 years old. Small villages were in the valley even earlier, around 400 BCE.

Now, you'll see different dates online because archaeologists keep finding new things. When two good sources disagree, I use the one from Britannica or the Met and I write the other number next to it, so you know there's a debate.

And the name is Aztec, but the city is NOT. The Aztecs found it in ruins in the 1400s and named it Teotihuacan, "the place where the gods were created". My Teotihuacan history page explains who built it and what happened.

Between 125,000 and 200,000 people lived here at the peak, around 500 CE, and that made it one of the biggest cities in the Americas back then. Some sources say "more than 100,000" because nobody counted, so archaeologists estimate it from the apartment compounds they dig up.

But after the center burned, around 550 CE, the city got a lot smaller, and by 600 to 800 CE about 30,000 people or fewer were still living here.

The Pyramid of the Sun is about 66 m (216 ft) tall and the Pyramid of the Moon is about 43 m (140 ft). You'll find heights from 63.5 to 65.5 m for the Sun online, because it was measured at different times, and I use the Britannica number.

Also, the Moon 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 the Temple of the Feathered Serpent is the third biggest pyramid of the city, inside the Ciudadela.

Right now you can't climb the Sun, and you can climb the Moon only up to the first section. My can you climb the pyramids post has the details.

In 2025, 1,785,275 people visited Teotihuacan and its site museum, according to INAH numbers reported by ADN40. Only Chichen Itza gets more people, so Teotihuacan is the 2nd most visited archaeological site in Mexico.

INAH doesn't always put out one clean number for the whole year, so for 2024 the best number I found covers January to November. And about half of the people who came in 2024 paid for a ticket, because a lot of people get in free, like kids under 13 and Mexicans and residents on Sundays.

The busiest days are the spring equinox, around March 20 and 21. Over 4 days in 2025, 36,255 people came, so if you're going for the spring equinox I recommend to go really early.

The ticket is $210 MXN (about $12 USD) if you're not Mexican or a resident, and it includes the Sun, the Moon and the site museum. It's open every day from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, and the last entry is 4:30 PM.

Teotihuacan is about 50 km (30 miles) northeast of Mexico City, around 1 hour by car without traffic. My how to get to Teotihuacan guide explains the bus, Uber and tour options, and the Teotihuacan map shows where each gate is. For every cost in one place, read how much it costs to go to Teotihuacan, and the opening hours post has more details.

If you want a Teotihuacan tour or a sunrise hot air balloon above the pyramids... that's what me and my team do. Our SECTUR-certified local guides pick you up at your hotel or Airbnb, the tickets are included and every tour is in English. The group tours start at $1,000 MXN (about $55 USD) per person, the private tour is $2,800 MXN, and the hot air balloon starts at $3,200 MXN. You can compare all the tours side by side :)