Mérida

Mérida stands on the site of the Maya city of T'hó, also called Ichcaanzihó, "City of Five Hills", after its pyramids. Francisco de Montejo the Younger founded the Spanish city here in 1542 and named it after Mérida in Extremadura, because the Maya ruins reminded the conquistadors of the Roman ruins of the Spanish town. Carved stones from T'hó went into the first Spanish buildings, and they can still be seen in the walls of the cathedral, finished in 1598. Nahua soldiers who had fought for Montejo were settled in the barrios of San Cristóbal, Santiago and San Román, exempt from taxes.

From colonial times to the mid-19th century Mérida was a walled city, built to protect the Spanish and criollo population from Maya revolts, and old arches — such as those of San Juan and of Calle 59 — marked the start of the roads to Campeche and Izamal. In the Caste War that began in 1847, Maya rebels besieged Mérida, whose governor prepared to evacuate the city, before many of the rebel troops left the lines to plant their crops.

The late 19th century brought a boom in henequen, a fibre for rope and twine, grown on the plantations around the city. The planters built French-style mansions along the new Paseo de Montejo, and from 1905 more than a thousand Korean immigrants came to work in the fields. The fibre trade later faded, but Mérida grew as the peninsula's capital of commerce, education and culture. It was named American Capital of Culture in 2000 and again in 2017, and has hosted two summits between the presidents of the United States and Mexico, in 1999 and 2007. The Tren Maya reached the city in the 2020s.

Geography long kept Yucatán apart from the rest of Mexico, and Mérida's culture shows it. The Spanish failed to stamp out Maya tradition, which survives in speech, dress and above all in Hanal Pixán, the Maya and Catholic Day of the Dead on 1 and 2 November, when families build altars for their dead and eat mukbil pollo, a tamale pie baked in an underground oven. Yucatec Maya is spoken by about a third of the state's population, though it still carries a stigma, and Yucatecan Spanish keeps an accent and old words little used elsewhere.

Music is part of daily life. Trova yucateca, the Yucatecan song tradition for guitar and voice, grew up here; a museum in La Mejorada honours composers such as Ricardo Palmerín and Guty Cárdenas. Free concerts and dances are held in the parks and squares almost every day, and the jarana, a local adaptation of the Spanish jota, is the traditional dance. The Yucatán Symphony Orchestra plays at the José Peón Contreras Theatre on Calle 60, and the MACAY museum installs a new sculpture exhibition along the Paseo de Montejo each year.

Carnaval in the weeks before Lent is one of the biggest in Mexico. Baseball is the summer passion: the Leones de Yucatán have played in the Mexican League since 1954 and won five championships. Syrian-Lebanese immigrants who arrived in the early 20th century left their mark on the city's cooking.

About 920,000 people lived in the city at the 2020 census, and about 1.3 million in the metropolitan area, which takes in Kanasín and Umán. The wealthier districts lie to the north, with malls and gated housing, and the most densely populated ones to the south. In 2022 a UN-Habitat index ranked Mérida first in Mexico for quality of life, and Forbes has three times named it one of the three best cities in Mexico to live, invest and do business.

The economy rests on services, commerce, universities and research centres such as the Yucatán Scientific Research Center, along with manufacturing and the tourism that uses the city as a base for the ruins and cenotes. Public transport has been changing quickly: since the early 2020s the state's Va y Ven network has been replacing the old private bus companies, and the IE-TRAM electric bus line opened in 2023.

In the heat the day starts early and slows at midday, and in the evening families gather in the parks and plazas, many of them with free music. On Sunday mornings the Paseo de Montejo and Calle 60 close to cars for cyclists, and on Sunday afternoons the Plaza Grande becomes a street fair. The Mérida English Library serves a large community of English-speaking residents.

Yucatecan food is a kitchen of its own, mixing Maya cooking with Caribbean, Spanish and Middle Eastern influences, and Mérida is the place to eat it. Its base is recado rojo, a red paste of ground achiote seeds with spices, used above all in cochinita pibil, pork marinated in achiote and slow-cooked — the region's most famous dish. Poc chuc is marinated grilled pork; sopa de lima is chicken broth with the local lime and crisp tortilla; papadzules are egg-filled tortillas under a pumpkin-seed sauce; and relleno negro, also called chimole, is turkey in a black paste of charred chillies. Queso relleno is an Edam cheese stuffed with spiced pork. Habanero salsa comes with almost everything.

Snacks and breakfasts are where the city eats out every day. Panuchos are fried tortillas filled with black beans and topped with turkey or chicken, avocado and pickled onion; salbutes are softer tortillas with similar toppings; huevos motuleños are a breakfast of eggs on tortillas with black beans and cheese. Bul keken, black bean and pork soup, is traditionally eaten at home on Mondays. Kibis are a common snack in the markets, and marquesitas — rolled crêpes filled with Edam cheese or sweet fillings — are another local favourite.

Mercado Lucas de Gálvez and the smaller neighbourhood markets supply the city. To drink there is agua de chaya, made from a local leafy green, fruit waters, horchata and the honey-and-anise liqueur xtabentún, and the sorbet shops of the centre have been cooling the city for more than a century.