Maya archaeology exhibits a curious combination of obsession and disinterest when it comes to the study of directional patterns in the built landscape. On the one hand, there is an established, if often hotly debated, literature on the alignments of Maya monumental buildings and what they might mean in terms of changing political fortunes, religious priorities or astronomical knowledge. On the other hand, the wider landscape beyond the monumental epicentres of Maya sites is traditionally seen as a dispersed free-for-all, in which both field systems and non-elite habitations are scattered in a regionally variable and, in comparison to monumental epicentres, far less formal way. Despite this, many studies have considered the relative spacing of Maya settlement as an important piece of empirical evidence for the nature of small-scale agricultural strategies and higher-order political organisation. Furthermore, an increasing number of studies of rural settlement and spatial organisation have also begun to question the traditional dichotomy that distinguishes Maya urban from rural spaces. Using the unusually well-explored major site of Baking Pot in west-central Belize, as a case study, this paper builds upon this wider sense of the regional variability and more mixed urban and rural characteristics exhibited by Maya settlements, and further questions the assumption that it is only the monumental core of a site that shows any degree of formal spatial alignment. Furthermore, through the observed spacing, grouping and alignment of mounds it also explores what these might say about the nature of houseplots in the central Maya lowlands and more broadly what they might imply for the nature of Maya urbanism. Finally, with the increased use of Lidar and new opportunities to explore Maya settlements on much larger scale, this paper attempts to perhaps reopen discussion and further research on level of official planning in both Maya urban and rural spaces.