The Maya were a native people of Mexico and Central America who inhabited the lands comprising modern-day Yucatan, Quintana Roo, Campeche, Tabasco, and Chiapas. Their civilization stretched well beyond current-day Mexican borders, southward through Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and Honduras. The overall time span of the Maya extended from 7000 BCE to 1524 CE. But their civilisation reached its apex of maximum splendor during the so-called ‘Classic Period’, from 250 to 900 CE.