03Cities and regions
Quintana Roo
Cancún and the Riviera Maya
Mexico's best-known holiday coast runs down the northeastern edge of the Yucatán Peninsula. Cancún is a planned resort city: work began in 1970, when its island had just three residents, and today its hotel zone fills a sand bar between the Caribbean and a lagoon. South of it the Riviera Maya follows Highway 307, reaching Playa del Carmen after about 68 kilometres and then Tulum, whose ruins stand on 12-metre cliffs. Tulum was a Maya port that flourished from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, trading by land and sea, especially in obsidian, and it is now the third most visited archaeological site in Mexico. Offshore lies the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, which starts at Punta Cancún and runs south along the whole Riviera Maya. Reach the Tulum ruins early, before the tour buses, and take a ferry to Isla Mujeres or Cozumel for a day on the water.
- 1970
- Cancún project begins
- 0
- Playa del Carmen population
- 0 m
- Height of Tulum's cliffs
- over 2.2 million
- Visitors to Tulum's ruins
Highlights
- Isla MujeresA nearby island reached by ferry from Cancún, with Playa Norte beach and the Cancún Underwater Museum off its west coast.
- CozumelMexico's largest permanently inhabited island, about 48 kilometres long, facing Playa del Carmen and ringed by reefs with more than 1,000 marine species.
- Sian Ka'anA biosphere reserve south of Tulum, created in 1986 and listed as World Heritage in 1987.