This archaeological site takes its name from Santo Domingo de Palenque, a town probably founded in the seventeenth century. As early as the end of the century, the site's mounds were identified as vestiges of a once great metropolis.

Further knowledge came to light in 1774 thanks to one Antonio del Rio, who with Antonio Bernasconio and Jose Antonio Calderon journeyed there from the city of Guatemala to report his findings to the Royal Audience. From then onward more and more specialized scholars visited and published studies on Palenque. At present, therefore, we have much accumulated knowledge about the site, its inhabitants, culture, and central political role in a large part of the Mayan area.

What makes Palenque a major community in the Mayan world is its evolved architecture and vast trade networks which linked it not only with the Mayan sphere, but with more distant Meso-American domains as well.

The ancient city holds over 200 buildings of varying size and complexity, all adapted to a landscape extending 2,800 yards from east to west, and 1,100 yards from north to south, giving it a total area of some 620 acres.