Taos Pueblo

Taos Pueblo is a multi-story adobe housing complex built by the Tiwa-speaking Puebloan people of northern New Mexico, continuously inhabited for roughly a thousand years and considered one of the oldest continuously occupied communities in the United States. Its two principal structures, Hlaauma and Hlaukwima, sit on either side of the Rio Pueblo de Taos and are each built up in tiered, stepped back stories of sun dried mud brick reinforced with straw, their walls periodically re-plastered with fresh adobe mud by residents in a maintenance tradition comparable to that of the Great Mosque of Djenne. The pueblo has no electricity or running water within its historic walls by community choice, preserving its traditional building methods and way of life, and it remains home to roughly 150 residents today, with many more Taos Pueblo members living nearby on surrounding tribal land. It was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992 and is also a United States National Historic Landmark.