Cancún

The island strip where the resort stands was known to the Maya as Nizuc, and small settlements such as El Rey, whose ruins sit among the hotels, flourished here in the Early Classic period; El Meco, just to the north, was a port on the coastal trade route. The name Cancún, from Maya words usually translated as "nest of snakes", first appears on 18th-century maps. After the Spanish conquest, disease, war and famine emptied most of the coast, leaving only small communities on Isla Mujeres and Cozumel.

Cancún was chosen by the Mexican government as a site for a new tourist centre. In 1967 a fund was given to the Bank of Mexico to find places with no other viable development, and work began on 23 January 1970, when the island had only three residents, caretakers of a coconut plantation, and about 117 people lived in the fishing village of Puerto Juárez. Investors were wary, so the government financed the first nine hotels; the first hotel opened in September 1974, and the project became the pioneer of the national tourism fund FONATUR. From 1970 to 1980 the population grew by an average of more than 60 per cent a year, and in 1981 the city hosted the North–South Summit of world leaders.

Hurricanes have tested it repeatedly. Gilbert hit directly in September 1988, forcing hotels to be rebuilt; Wilma passed just west of the city in 2005; and Dean in 2007 stripped sand from the beaches. By 2005 the Hotel Zone had about 27,000 rooms, against 2,000 in 1974; sargassum has arrived every summer since 2015, and in 2023 the city received a record 21 million tourists. The Tren Maya began running from Cancún in December 2023.

Cancún is younger than most of its residents' parents. Most Cancunenses came from Yucatán and other Mexican states, drawn by work in tourism, and a growing number come from elsewhere in the Americas and Europe. The result is a city with little colonial past but a mix of regional cultures: Yucatecan food and Maya words alongside newcomers from across Mexico and beyond.

Two worlds sit side by side. The Hotel Zone is an international resort, known for spring-break partying by college students, with big nightclubs, bars and all-inclusive hotels. Downtown is an ordinary Mexican city, whose life centres on the Parque de las Palapas, the markets and the avenues of superblocks; its landmarks are modest, among them the Ceviche Fountain at the junction of Cobá and Tulum avenues, whose sculpture was remade after hurricane damage, and a replica of the old airport control tower, a memorial to the city's founding.

Sport has a following: the city has professional football teams and the Tigres de Quintana Roo baseball team, and in 2023 it hosted the WTA Finals in women's tennis. The surrounding Maya heritage is presented at the Mayan Museum of Cancún, opened in 2012.

In the 2020 census the city had about 889,000 people, the most populous in Quintana Roo. It is the seat of the municipality of Benito Juárez and still growing fast as workers arrive for jobs in hotels, restaurants, construction and transport.

Tourism is almost the whole economy, and the Hotel Zone is its engine. Daily life for most residents is on the mainland, in neighbourhoods laid out in numbered superblocks, and many commute by bus along Kukulcán Boulevard to work shifts in the resorts. Growth has outrun services: the city has long struggled to provide them for the constant influx of new residents, and irregular settlements spread on the mainland.

Current issues include drug-related violence, with homicides above the national average since 2018; the annual arrival of sargassum on the beaches; erosion, which has meant replenishing the beaches with dredged sand many times; and the pressure of record visitor numbers on water, lagoons and reefs. The Tren Maya and new road links have brought the rest of the peninsula closer.

Cancún's cooking borrows from all over Mexico, but its roots are Yucatecan and Caribbean. Downtown, the markets and the stalls around the Parque de las Palapas serve tacos and tortas at local prices. The peninsula's own dishes, such as cochinita pibil, pork marinated in citrus juice and achiote and slow-roasted, and sopa de lima, chicken soup with the local lime, appear on many menus.

Seafood is everywhere. Fried-fish and shrimp tacos are the everyday staples of downtown taquerías, alongside ceviche, fish and shellfish cooked with lime, and shrimp in many forms; tacos al pastor, spit-roasted pork, are as popular here as in the rest of the country.

The Hotel Zone has international restaurants and the big party bars, while Mercado 28 and the downtown streets are where residents eat. Fresh fruit waters, horchata and cold beer are the drinks of the heat; xtabentún, a honey liqueur of Maya origin made in Yucatán, is the regional spirit.