Cancún

About Cancún

Cancún is the most populous city in the Mexican 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.

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...

Overview adapted from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA. Photography via Wikimedia Commons.