The Yucatán Peninsula

The peninsula sits on limestone, and around 66 million years ago an asteroid struck its northern coast, leaving the buried Chicxulub crater, whose rim is traced by a ring of cenotes. For the Maya, these sinkholes were the main source of water and gateways to the underworld. In the south, Calakmul in Campeche headed the Snake kingdom that fought Tikal for dominance in the Classic period; in the north, Uxmal and the Puuc cities flourished, and Chichén Itzá became the dominant power from around the 10th century. After its decline, Mayapán ruled until the mid-15th century, and the north broke into rival lordships, with walled coastal towns such as Tulum trading along the Caribbean.

The Spanish needed two decades to conquer the peninsula. Francisco de Montejo and his son founded Campeche in 1540 and Mérida in 1542 on the ruins of the Maya city of T'hó, and in 1562 the friar Diego de Landa burned Maya books and images at Maní. Campeche, the region's port, was raided repeatedly by pirates until its walls were built in the late 17th and 18th centuries. Remote from Mexico City, Yucatán broke away from Mexico in the 1840s, and in 1847 Maya rebels rose in the Caste War, which drove the whites back to Mérida and Campeche and left an independent Maya state around Chan Santa Cruz until the Mexican army took it in 1901.

In the late 19th century henequen, a fibre for rope and twine, made Mérida's planters among the richest people in Mexico, worked by indebted Maya labourers. Quintana Roo, a thinly populated territory, became a state in 1974, just as the government was building Cancún as a planned resort. Tourism has since transformed the coast, and the Tren Maya railway, opened from 2023, has been welcomed by some as development and criticised by others over its effects on forest, caves and cenotes.

The peninsula has a strong identity of its own. Yucatec Maya is spoken by hundreds of thousands of people, many of them in the villages of Yucatán and central Quintana Roo, and Maya words run through local Spanish, which has a distinctive accent and a humour Yucatecans are proud of. Many older women still wear the white embroidered huipil, and men the guayabera shirt, and the formal terno is worn for the jarana, the region's lively folk dance performed at fiestas called vaquerías.

The Maya Day of the Dead, Hanal Pixán, is marked with altars and mucbipollo, a large chicken tamale baked in an earth oven. Villages hold patron-saint fiestas with bullfights in wooden rings and processions, and Izamal, around its great Franciscan convent, is a pilgrimage centre. Yucatecan trova, romantic songs for guitar trio, grew up in Mérida, where free concerts and dances fill the squares on many evenings, and a large Lebanese community, established in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, has left its mark on the city's business and kitchen.

Crafts include hammocks woven in the villages around Mérida, Panama hats plaited in the humid caves of Bécal in Campeche, and embroidery. The Caribbean coast is different in character: a newer, cosmopolitan world of migrants from across Mexico and abroad.

About 5.2 million people live on the Mexican side of the peninsula. Mérida has about a million in its municipality and is the region's cultural and business capital; Cancún, which barely existed before 1970, now has around 900,000, and Playa del Carmen has grown into a city of about 300,000. Campeche, Chetumal, the capital of Quintana Roo, Ciudad del Carmen and Valladolid are the other main towns.

Tourism dominates Quintana Roo's economy, drawing workers from Chiapas, Tabasco and beyond, while Yucatán lives on services, manufacturing, universities and farming, and Campeche on offshore oil in the Bay of Campeche worked from Ciudad del Carmen, fishing and agriculture. Mérida has become a favoured home for Mexicans moving from other states and for foreign retirees and remote workers, pushing up property prices.

In the heat, the day begins early and slows at midday; in the evening families gather in the plazas. Current issues include the rapid growth of the Caribbean coast, pressure on water and cenotes, the sargassum that washes up in summer, and the changes brought by the Tren Maya to villages along its route.

Yucatecan food is one of Mexico's most distinct kitchens, built on recados — spice pastes of achiote, sour orange and pepper — and on the fiery habanero chilli. Cochinita pibil is pork marinated in achiote and sour orange, wrapped in banana leaves and slow-cooked in a pit; poc chuc is thin pork steak marinated in sour orange and grilled; and sopa de lima is chicken soup with the local lime and fried tortilla strips. Papadzules are tortillas filled with hard-boiled egg under a pumpkin-seed sauce, and relleno negro is turkey in a black sauce of charred chillies.

Snacks include panuchos, fried tortillas stuffed with black beans and topped with shredded meat, and salbutes, puffy fried tortillas with toppings. Queso relleno, an Edam cheese hollowed out and filled with spiced meat, reflects the old trade in Dutch cheese, and marquesitas, crisp rolled crêpes with Edam and sweet fillings, are sold in Mérida's squares. Campeche adds seafood: pan de cazón, tortillas layered with shredded dogfish, beans and tomato sauce, and shrimp in many forms.

Honey is an important product, and the Maya have kept stingless melipona bees for centuries. Xtabentún is an anise liqueur made with honey, and horchata and fresh fruit waters are drunk against the heat.

Yucatán state holds the great ruins. Chichén Itzá, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has El Castillo, the great ball court, the Temple of the Warriors and the Sacred Cenote, and the cenote of Ik Kil is nearby. Uxmal and the Puuc route of Kabah, Sayil and Labná show a different, more ornate style. Mérida's cathedral, main square and Paseo de Montejo are the base for all of these, while Valladolid and yellow-painted Izamal are smaller colonial towns. The state's cenotes include the clusters around Homún and Cuzamá, and flamingo colonies feed at Celestún and Río Lagartos.

Quintana Roo is the Caribbean coast. Cancún has its Hotel Zone and the ferry to Isla Mujeres; the Riviera Maya runs south through Puerto Morelos, Playa del Carmen and Akumal, with its sea turtles, to Tulum, where the walled Maya site stands on a cliff above the beach. Inland are the ruins of Cobá and the cenotes of the Tulum area, and to the south the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve and the pale blue lagoon of Bacalar. Cozumel, off Playa del Carmen, is known for reef diving, and Holbox, in the far north, for sand streets, flamingos and summer whale sharks.

Campeche's walled city, with its bastions and forts, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the fort of San Miguel houses a museum of Maya archaeology. Edzná lies inland, and in the southern forests the ruins of Calakmul rise above a large biosphere reserve.