13.5294°N, 88.2217°W.
Quelepa is a long-occupied Mesoamerican center in eastern El Salvador, near the city of San Miguel, with a sequence extending from approximately 500 BCE through 1000 CE. The site is the principal known archaeological center of the eastern Salvadoran cultural sphere, distinct from the Maya west of the Lempa River. Construction is of cut stone over earthen cores, with the principal architecture organized into three plaza groups containing platform pyramids up to 8 metres high, an I-shaped ballcourt, and residential compounds. John Longyear conducted early surveys in the 1940s, and the major research project was led by E. Wyllys Andrews V in the 1970s and published as a Tulane monograph in 1976. Quelepa shows ceramic and architectural ties to the Veracruz Gulf coast of Mexico in the Late Classic period, including a distinctive yoke-form sculpture associated with the Mesoamerican ballgame.
The principal mound and ballcourt remain visible in the consolidated archaeological zone north of the modern city.