page_title: Chiapas
section_title: Tourism and general commerce/services
hierarchical_section_title: Chiapas / Economy / Tourism and general commerce/services
caption_attribution_description: English: Misol-Há Waterfall
context_page_description: Chiapas, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas, is one of the states that make up the 32 federal entities of Mexico. It is divided into 124 municipalities as of September 2017 and its capital city is Tuxtla Gutiérrez. Other important population centers in Chiapas include Ocosingo, Tapachula, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Comitán and Arriaga. It is the southernmost state in Mexico, and it borders the states of Oaxaca to the west, Veracruz to the northwest and Tabasco to the north, and the Petén, Quiché, Huehuetenango, and San Marcos departments of Guatemala to the east and southeast. Chiapas has a coastline along the Pacific Ocean to the south.
  In general, Chiapas has a humid, tropical climate. In the north, in the area bordering Tabasco, near Teapa, rainfall can average more than 3,000 mm per year. In the past, natural vegetation in this region was lowland, tall perennial rainforest, but this vegetation has been almost completely cleared to allow agriculture and ranching. Rainfall decreases moving towards the Pacific Ocean, but it is still abundant enough to allow the farming of bananas and many other tropical crops near Tapachula.
context_section_description: Ninety-four percent of the state's commercial outlets are small retail stores with about 6% wholesalers. There are 111 municipal markets, 55 tianguis, three wholesale food markets and 173 large vendors of staple products. The service sector is the most important to the economy, with mostly commerce, warehousing and tourism.
  Tourism brings large numbers of visitors to the state each year. Most of Chiapas' tourism is based on its culture, colonial cities and ecology. The state has a total of 491 ranked hotels with 12,122 rooms. There are also 780 other establishments catering primarily to tourism, such as services and restaurants.
  There are three main tourist routes: the Maya Route, the Colonial Route and the Coffee Route. The Maya Route runs along the border with Guatemala in the Lacandon Jungle and includes the sites of Palenque, Bonampak, Yaxchilan along with the natural attractions of Agua Azul Waterfalls, Misol-Há Waterfall, and the Catazajá Lake. Palenque is the most important of these sites, and one of the most important tourist destinations in the state. Yaxchilan was a Mayan city along the Usumacinta River. It developed between 350 and 810 CE.  Bonampak is known for its well preserved murals. These Mayan sites have made the state an attraction for international tourism. These sites contain a large number of structures, most of which date back thousands of years, especially to the sixth century. In addition to the sites on the Mayan Route, there are others within the state away from the border such as Toniná, near the city of Ocosingo.
  The Colonial Route is mostly in the central highlands with a significant number of churches, monasteries and other structures from the colonial period along with some from the 19th century and even into the early 20th. The most important city on this route is San Cristóbal de las Casas, located in the Los Altos region in the Jovel Valley. The historic center of the city is filled with tiled roofs, patios with flowers, balconies, Baroque facades along with Neoclassical and Moorish designs. It is centered on a main plaza surrounded by the cathedral, the municipal palace, the Portales commercial area and the San Nicolás church. In addition, it has museums dedicated to the state's indigenous cultures, one to amber and one to jade, both of which have been mined in the state. Other attractions along this route include Comitán de Domínguez and Chiapa de Corzo, along with small indigenous communities such as San Juan Chamula. The state capital of Tuxtla Gutiérrez does not have many colonial era structures left, but it lies near the area's most famous natural attraction of the Sumidero Canyon. This canyon is popular with tourists who take boat tours into it on the Grijalva River to see such features such as caves (La Cueva del Hombre, La Cueva del Silencio) and the Christmas Tree, which is a rock and plant formation on the side of one of the canyon walls created by a seasonal waterfall.
  The Coffee Route begins in Tapachula and follows a mountainous road into the Suconusco regopm. The route passes through Puerto Chiapas, a port with modern infrastructure for shipping exports and receiving international cruises.  The route visits a number of coffee plantations, such as Hamburgo, Chiripa, Violetas, Santa Rita, Lindavista, Perú-París, San Antonio Chicarras and Rancho Alegre. These haciendas provide visitors with the opportunity to see how coffee is grown and initially processed on these farms. They also offer a number of ecotourism activities such as mountain climbing, rafting, rappelling and mountain biking.  There are also tours into the jungle vegetation and the Tacaná Volcano. In addition to coffee, the region also produces most of Chiapas’ soybeans, bananas and cacao.
  The state has a large number of ecological attractions most of which are connected to water. The main beaches on the coastline include Puerto Arista, Boca del Cielo, Playa Linda, Playa Aventuras, Playa Azul and Santa Brigida. Others are based on the state's lakes and rivers. Laguna Verde is a lake in the Coapilla municipality. 
caption: Misol-Há Waterfall
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