The Nahuas of El Salvador (Cuscatlan), better known as "Pipiles" in the academic literature, are an indigenous people who live in western El Salvador, which they call Cuscatlan. The Pipil language, or Nawat, belongs to the Nahuatl dialect group, which stretches from Durango in Mexico to El Salvador, and historically as far as the Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica. It is thought that the Pipil, along with the neighbouring Nicarao people, migrated from Central Mexico to their present location around A.D. 900, after the Chichimeca-Toltec civil war. As they settled in the area, they founded the city-state of Cuscatlan, absorbed many other preexisting polities, and intermarried with the native peoples, mostly Lenca, Poqomam, and Xinca.