Chinamita

Territory of the Chinamita
Territory of the Chinamita
ca 16th cent–ca 1700
	Location of the Chinamita Territory in the 17th century / most commonly accepted location in dark grey, with alternative ones in light grey / 2023 map based on scholarship / via Commons
Status	Dissolved
Capital	Tulumki / likely
Common languages	Mopan Mayan / likely
Religion	Maya polytheism
Demonym(s)	Chinamita; Tulumki
Government	Confederacy of settlements with aristocratic and theocratic features / possibly
Historical era	Spanish to Precolonial / likely
• Established	ca 16th cent
• Disestablished	ca 1700
Today part of	Belize / likely; Guatemala / certain
	Founding and dissolution dates per Jones 1998, pp. 19–20 and Palka 2005, pp. 1–2. Capital per Rice & Rice 2009, p. 13 and Jones 1998, pp. 19–20. Common language per Rice & Rice 2009, pp. 12–13 and Jones 1998, pp. 20–21, though see Thompson 1977, p. 13 for dissent. Demonym per Rice & Rice 2009, p. 13 and Jones 1998, pp. 20–21, 433–434. Government per Jones 1998, pp. 20–22.

The Chinamitas or Tulumkis (Nahuatl chinamitl, Mopan tulumki) were likely a Mopan Maya people who constituted the former Chinamita Territory, an early Columbian polity of the Maya Lowlands, likely in present-day Belize and Guatemala. In the early 17th century, the Territory probably lay along the Mopan River in the eastern Petén Basin and neighbouring portions of western Belize, being thereby situated east of the Itza of Nojpetén, south of the Yaxhá and Sacnab lakes, and west of Tipuj.