Question: When did the Maya city located in present-day Copán Department , Honduras serve as a capital city ?

text: Maya city
Population estimates
Map of the Maya region showing locations of some of the principal cities . Click to enlarge . Until the 1960s , scholarly opinion was that the ruins of Maya centres were not true cities but were rather empty ceremonial centres where the priesthood performed religious rituals for the peasant farmers , who lived dispersed in the middle of the jungle . [ 11 ] Since the 1960s , formal archaeological mapping projects have revealed that the ceremonial centres in fact formed the centres of dispersed cities that possessed populations that at some sites could reach tens of thousands . [ 11 ]
Maya cities were the centres of population of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica. They served the specialised roles of administration, commerce, manufacturing and religion that characterised ancient cities worldwide. Maya cities tended to be more dispersed than cities in other societies, even within Mesoamerica, as a result of adaptation to a lowland tropical environment that allowed food production amidst areas dedicated to other activities. They lacked the grid plans of the highland cities of central Mexico, such as Teotihuacán and Tenochtitlan. Maya kings ruled their kingdoms from palaces that were situated within the centre of their cities. Cities tended to be located in places that controlled trade routes or that could supply essential products. This allowed the elites that controlled trade to increase their wealth and status. Such cities were able to construct temples for public ceremonies, thus attracting further inhabitants to the city. Those cities that had favourable conditions for food production, combined with access to trade routes, were likely to develop into the capital cities of early Maya states. The political relationship between Classic Maya city-states has been likened to the relationships between city-states in Classical Greece and Renaissance Italy. Some cities were linked to each other by straight limestone causeways, known as sacbeob, although whether the exact function of these roads was commercial, political or religious has not been determined.
Site name Location Maximum population Period
Coba Quintana Roo , Mexico 50,000 Late Classic
Copán Copán Department , Honduras 15,000-21,000 Late Classic
Calakmul Campeche , Mexico 50,000 Late Classic
Caracol Cayo District , Belize 140,000 Classic
Cival Petén Department , Guatemala 2,000-5,000 Late Preclassic
El Pilar Cayo District , Belize ; Petén Department , Guatemala 180,000 Late Classic
Mixco Viejo ( Jilotepeque Viejo ) Chimaltenango Department , Guatemala 1,500 Late Postclassic
Motul de San José Petén Department , Guatemala 1,200-2,000 Late Classic
Quiriguá Izabal Department , Guatemala 1,200-1,600 Late Classic
Qʼumarkaj Quiché Department , Guatemala 15,000 Late Postclassic
Río Azul Petén Department , Guatemala 3,500 Early Classic
Santa Rita Corozal Corozal District , Belize 7,000 Late Postclassic
Sayil Yucatán , Mexico 10,000 Terminal Classic
Seibal Petén Department , Guatemala 10,000 Late Preclassic
Tikal Petén Department , Guatemala 100,000 Late Classic