What region of Mars contains the 'Face on Mars'?

The region of Mars containing the “Face on Mars” is Cydonia. The famous feature is a mesa in the Cydonia region of Mars’s northern hemisphere, photographed by NASA’s Viking 1 orbiter in 1976.

The original image showed a roughly two-kilometre-long landform whose shadows and shape resembled a human face. Its appearance sparked widespread speculation that it might be an artificial monument built by an ancient Martian civilization. Scientists, however, identified the resemblance as pareidolia—the tendency to perceive familiar patterns in random shapes.

Higher-resolution images from Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Express, and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter revealed the feature as a naturally formed hill. Its face-like appearance depends strongly on the viewing angle, lighting, and the relatively low resolution of the first Viking photographs.

Cydonia is not a city or a single geological object; it is a broad Martian region containing several mesas and other landforms. The “Face” is often called Cydonia Mensae, using the planetary-geology term for a mesa or elevated plateau.