A title that makes your brain guess wrong
When someone says “largest pyramid in the world,” you probably immediately picture Giza: desert, camels, pharaohs. Understandable. But that answer is wrong, at least if you measure “largest” in volume. The real champion lies across the ocean, hidden in Mexico, and it doesn’t even look like a pyramid.
The pyramid that disguises itself as a hill
In Cholula, in the Mexican state of Puebla, lies Tlachihualtepetl, better known as the Great Pyramid of Cholula. And the bizarre thing is: you can walk there and think you’re simply climbing a green hill. On top of that “hill” even stands a Catholic church: the Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de los Remedios, built in the 16th century.
That’s when you realize just how gigantic this thing is. Not a pointed stone giant like in Egypt, but an enormous, broad mass that has grown dense over centuries and become covered with earth and vegetation.
The figures that make Egypt jealous
The Great Pyramid of Cholula is the largest pyramid in the world by volume: approximately 4.45 million cubic meters. For comparison, the Great Pyramid of Giza is around 2.6 million cubic meters.
And yet, Cholula is much lower. Where Giza once stood approximately 146.6 meters high, Cholula today rises only about 25 meters above the surrounding plain. That sounds small, until you hear its width: the base of Cholula is approximately 300 by 315 meters. It feels less like a tower and more like an artificial mountain.
Built in layers, generation after generation
This wasn’t a project of a single ruler with a single grand plan. Cholula grew through successive construction phases: layer upon layer, expansion upon expansion, over a period roughly spanning from the 3rd century BC to around the 9th century AD. The complex is traditionally linked to the worship of Quetzalcoatl.
This means that people continued to build the same sacred site for centuries, as if each generation were saying: make it bigger, make it more important, make it unforgettable.
The tunnels: a pyramid with an inner world
In the 20th century, archaeologists began digging tunnels to prove that the “hill” wasn’t a natural mountain. The result is almost cinematic: a network of approximately 8 kilometers of tunnels lies within the pyramid. Today, part of it is accessible, and you can literally walk through the hidden layers of the structure.
Why almost no one knows this
Because Cholula doesn’t claim to be a world record. It’s located in the middle of a populated region. It’s green. There’s a church on it. And if you don’t know it, you might walk past it thinking you’re simply going to a beautiful viewpoint.
But beneath your feet lies one of the most extreme engineering feats of antiquity: a pyramid that surpasses the world’s most famous pyramids in sheer mass, and that successfully pretended for centuries to be just a hill.
