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Cancún

City in MexicoCancún lies on the north-east coast of the Yucatán Peninsula, in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, facing the Caribbean Sea.

What it's known for

Cancún is a planned city that the Mexican government created to bring in tourism, with a Hotel Zone of beach resorts that juts into the Caribbean. It sits just north of the Riviera Maya coast and hosted the 2010 United Nations Climate Change Conference.

Fun facts

  1. When work on the resort began on 23 January 1970, Isla Cancún had only three residents, all caretakers of a coconut plantation.
  2. The name comes from the Maya words for 'snake' and 'to swell', and one suggested meaning is 'nest of snakes'.
  3. Off the coast, the Cancún Underwater Museum has about 500 sculptures on the seabed, placed there to draw divers away from damaged coral reefs.

Finding it on the globe

Go to the Yucatán Peninsula, the block of land pointing north between the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, and tap its north-east corner, across the Yucatán Channel from the western tip of Cuba.

Easy to mix up

Cancún is the largest city in Quintana Roo, but the state capital is Chetumal, far to the south on Chetumal Bay near Belize. Mexico's capital is Mexico City.

Sources: Wikipedia: Cancún, Wikipedia: Cancún Underwater Museum, Wikipedia: Quintana Roo, Wikipedia: Chetumal, Wikipedia: Yucatán Channel