This ancient city, lovely even in its ruined state, is one of the largest of the lowland Maya sites. It is estimated that it once boasted a population of 25,000 and its rulers held sway over the nearby settlements of Labna, Sayil and Kabah. All are built in the Puuc style of architecture, named after the nearby Puuc hills, and roads (sacbes) paved with limestone slabs joined the four sites. One striking feature of this style is that the lower walls are left undecorated while the upper portions burst forth in a veritable frenzy of mosaic reliefs of gods, flowers and undulating serpents.
     The image of the long-nosed rain god, Chac, is a frequent motif, probably because Uxmallacked the cenote, or sinkhole, that gave most other sites access to underground water and it was dependent on rainfall to fill its cisterns. Also, the alluvial soil washed down from the Puuc hills made their fields the most productive in all the Yucatan.