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Cancun

Mexico · North America

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City in Quintana Roo, Mexico

About Cancún

Cancún is the most populous city in the state of Quintana Roo, located in southeast Mexico, on the northeast coast of the Yucatán Peninsula. It is a significant tourist destination in Mexico and the seat of the municipality of Benito Juárez. The city is situated on the Caribbean Sea and is one of Mexico's easternmost points. Cancún is located just north of Mexico's Caribbean coast resort area known as the Riviera Maya. It encompasses the Hotel Zone which is the main area for tourism.

Etymology and coat of arms

According to early Spanish sources, the island of Cancún was originally known to its Maya inhabitants as Nizuc (Yucatec Maya: niʔ suʔuk), meaning either 'promontory' or 'point of grass'. The name Cancún, Cancum or Cankun first appears on 18th-century maps. In older English-language documents, the city's name is sometimes spelled Cancoon, an attempt to convey the sound of the name. Cancún is derived from the Mayan name kàan kun, composed of kàan 'snake' and the verb kum ~ kun 'to swell, overfill'. Two translations have been suggested: the first is 'nest of snakes' and the second, less accepted one is 'place of the golden snake'. Snake iconography was prevalent at the pre-Columbian site of Nizuc. The shield of the municipality of Benito Juárez, which represents the city of Cancún, was designed by the Mexican-American artist Joe Vera. …

History

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In the years after the Spanish conquest of Yucatán, much of the Maya population died or left as a result of disease, warfare, and famines, leaving only small settlements on Isla Mujeres and Cozumel Island. Cancún is a planned city, created to foster tourism. When development of the area as a resort was started on 23 January 1970, Isla Cancún had only three residents, all caretakers of the coconut plantation of Don José de Jesús Lima Gutiérrez, who lived on Isla Mujeres. Some 117 people lived in nearby Puerto Juárez, a fishing village and military base. Cancún was created as a government project to boost tourism. In 1967 the Mexican government allocated a 2 million dollar fund to be administered by the Bank of Mexico to determine the feasibility of creating new recreational zones, "preferably where no other viable development alternatives exist. …

Geography

Apart from the island tourist zone (part of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System), the Mexican residential section of the city, the downtown part of which is known as "El Centro", follows a master plan that consists of "supermanzanas" (superblocks), giant trapezoids with a central, open, non-residential area cut in by u-shaped residential streets. Cancún's mainland or downtown area has diverged from the original plan; development is scattered around the city. The remaining undeveloped beach and lagoon front areas outside the Hotel Zone are now under varying stages of development, in Punta Sam and Puerto Juarez to the north, continuing along Bonampak and south toward the airport along Boulevard Donaldo Colosio. One development abutting the Hotel Zone is Puerto Cancún; Malecon Cancún is another large development. …

Attractions

The Hotel Zone is the main means of economic income for Cancún and is one of the most visited international tourist destinations in the world. Despite being a young city, Cancún has a memorial monument of its foundation on a replica of the old Airport Control Tower that resembles to its own date of foundation. The original control tower was a provisional wooden structure, the work of Mexican architects Agustín and Enrique Landa Verdugo. The old airport was located on the same part of the city that today corresponds to the Kabah Avenue. The tower is 15 meters tall, has a 45 step staircase and has a base dimension of 5 × 5 meters. The memorial was first built in 2002 with a donation by Aerocaribe, a local airline, but the structure was damaged after Hurricane Wilma in 2005. …

Transportation

Cancún is served by the Cancún International Airport with an added main runway that commenced operation as of October 2009. It has many flights to North America, Central America, South America, and Europe. It is located on the northeast of the Yucatán Peninsula serving an average of about fifteen million passengers per year. The airport is located around 20 km (12 mi) from the Hotel Zone, approximately a 20-minute trip by car. The island of Isla Mujeres is located off the coast and is accessible by ferry from Puerto Juárez and Playa Tortugas in the Hotel Zone. In 2020, the Quintana Roo government implemented a law that all international visitors arriving to the State of Quintana Roo are required to pay a fee called the VisiTAX. Visitors with a Mexican passport are exempted from the tax. Bus service from Cancun Airport to Downtown Cancun is provided by bus company ADO. …