Thule is a huge tree located in a square next to a church in Santa Maria del Tule, Oaxaca. At the moment, this cypress is the thickest tree in the world with a trunk diameter of 11.62 meters and a height of 35.4.
At first, the size of the tree confused people and there were guesses that Thule were several trees fused together, but a DNA test proved that this is one ancient tree. There are several theories about the age of the giant cypress, and, depending on the chosen one, it ranges from 1200 to 6000 years.
According to the Zapotec legend, the tree was planted about 1400 years ago by the priest of Ehecatl, the god of the wind, which generally corresponds to the ideas of historians, since the tree grows on a former sacred site of the Indians, which later became part of the Catholic Church. Thule is also called the “tree of life” because the shape of its trunk sometimes resembles the outlines of animals and birds.
The miracle of nature was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2001.
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