Nojpetén

thumb|The island that was the site of Nojpetén is now developed as the modern town of Floresthumb|The main pyramid at Nojpetén would have looked very similar to the Castillo at Mayapan Nojpetén (also spelled Noh Petén, and also known as Tayasal) was the capital city of the Itza Maya kingdom of Petén Itzá. It was located on an island in Lake Petén Itzá in the modern department of Petén in northern Guatemala. The island is now occupied by the modern town of Flores, the capital of the Petén department, and has had uninterrupted occupation since pre-Columbian times. Nojpetén had defensive walls built upon the low ground of the island, which may have been hastily constructed by the Itza at a time when they felt threatened either by the encroaching Spanish or by other Maya groups.

==Etymology== Writing many years after his journey across Petén, conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo called the city Tayasal; this appears to have been a Hispanicisation of the Itza language ta itza ("at the place of the Itza"). The Itza king Kan Ek' referred to the city by the name Nojpetén when he spoke to the Spanish in 1698. Nojpetén, from the Itza noj peten, means "great island".