Mesoamerica is a cultural and historical unity. This term refers to a large historical and cultural region that unites a significant part of the territory of modern Mexico, modern Guatemala, modern Belize (former British Honduras), as well as such small countries as El Salvador, Honduras and part of the territory of Nicaragua. Mesoamerica is an area and a civilization that is geographically diverse. Mesoamerica combines both mountainous territories, where there are a large number of mountain ranges of different sizes, mountain valleys, and lowland zones that are overgrown with tropical or subtropical forest. In general, Mesoamerica can be divided into two parts: mountainous and flat.
Despite the fact that this is one civilization, there are different economic and social features in the mountains and on the plains. First of all, this is due to the structure of cities. Cities in mountainous Mesoamerica tend to be more concentrated, because there is little space. Cities in lowland Mesoamerica are scattered. They are always larger and resemble urban agglomerations. But at the same time, they are settlement, economically, economically, politically, administratively representing a single whole. In mountainous Mesoamerica, there have always been problems with water. Therefore, irrigation — artificial irrigation — and various types of systems related to water storage play a much greater role there. In Mesoamerica, the plains do not have such problems with water: there is a large amount of precipitation, rivers flow there, there are a large number of lakes. In this regard, in lowland Mesoamerica, the problem was often not irrigation, but drainage.
Due to the special role of water in the mountains and on the valleys, the deities of water and rain play an important role in Mesoamerican religion. There are rain deities all over the world, but there are somehow too many of them in Mesoamerica. In each pantheon there are several deities associated with rain and water. For example, in the Aztec pantheon there are deities associated with salt water, associated with flowing water and with calm water. The fact that religious views and the pantheon have many common features may be explained by constant contacts among different populations of Mesoamerica.