Cancún

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Cancún is a coastal city in Quintana Roo, Mexico's easternmost state. It is the municipal seat of Benito Juárez municipality and a world renowned tourist resort.

In the early 1950s Cancún was an undeveloped island just off the Caribbean Sea coast of the Yucatán peninsula, home to a few fishing hamlets and small Pre-Columbian ruins of the Maya civilization. The government of Mexico, together with an international group of private investors, decided to develop a tourist resort on Cancún. A causeway was built to link Cancún to the mainland, and an international airport was built. On the opposite side of the island from the Caribbean Sea is Nichupte Lagoon, which is used for boat and snorkelling tours of the area. Development of Cancún grew rapidly in the early 1960s.

The city has grown rapidly over the past thirty years to become a city of approximately half a million residents, covering the former island and the nearby mainland. There are actually very few true 'cancúnenses' (people originally from Cancún) because of the rate at which this tiny fisherman's village grew. Most people living here are from mainland mexico and a growing number are from the rest of the Americas and Europe.

Tourism in Cancún

In Cancún there are about 140 hotels with 24,000 rooms and 380 restaurants. Two million visitors arrive each year in an average of 190 flights daily. The hotel zone is one of the most exclusive internationally, with upmarket restaurants, bars, and the like which have catered for quite a number of the rich and famous. The hotel zone tends to be rather expensive as it is aimed at visitors and relies on the all inclusive hotels to keep them all in this area allowing prices to soar. Downtown is home to less expensive places to shop like Walmart, Comercial Mexicana and Soriana, not to mention several flea markets like the one in the hotel zone.

Downtown Cancún gives us a different aspect. There are also many clubs for all types of people, but the hotels are more accessible to all types of travelers, including some with lower rates.

The temperature of the city is warm, moderated by the marine breeze which circulates through its avenues. The temperatures are typically between 26°C and 36°C.

Cancún's hotel zone also has an interactive aquarium where visitors can see the marine diversity of the area, swim with dolphins and feed sharks.

The main language in Cancún is Spanish, although English is widely spoken throughout the tourist areas.

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