The Maya based their economy mainly on agriculture and trade, but hunting wild animals and collecting forest products were also important activities. Maya agriculture was based on the harvest of maize or corn. Large fields were slashed and burnt, preparing the soil for planting. At Copan with the river so close by the inhabitants of the city had some advantages and a different repertoire of available resources that its Maya Lowland neighbors.

However as usually happens with most large cities, the best farmland was used to build the city at. This did not present a problem until Copan had more population than it could sustain with their technology at the time. The first rules held enough power and resources to maintain the city, but as Copan grew in standing and importance, with its inevitable appeal, more and more people chose to live within the valley.

Even with the resources available through the river, fishing, trading ¡ transportation, there came a point when the valley just could not support the amount of people living there by the time of the last rulers of Copan.

The valley was abandoned towards the 9 th century AD, some people remained as the archaeological record has shown. The daily dietary supplements to their staple of maize, beans and breadnut included animal meat, fish, sea products, root crops and local fruits. This diverse diet, together with products cultivated through both the extensive and intensive agricultural systems, enriched the subsistence of the Copan population. Political alliances, arranged through royal marriages, were a means of preserving peace between the different sites but also stimulated the operation of commercial routes established between these city-states. Such is the case of the relationship of Copan with Quirigua. Assorted goods (pineapples, jade, etc.) flowed from one city to another, as their alliance increased the degree of interaction between them also increased. This increased interaction, in turn, meant that the commercial routes and the exchange and availability of primary and luxury goods from different and distant places was secured.

Trade was a fundamental activity to the Maya of Copan. Archaeological investigations have demonstrated that since early times popular goods and raw materials circulated through Copan and other sites in the Maya World region from distant places, such as the Yucatan, the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, where salt, shells, snails and stingray spines were produced, while obsidian, jade, quetzal feathers, grinding stones and other articles came from the Guatemalan highlands.