CANCN

city and adjacent island resort area, Quintana Roo estado (state), southeastern Mexico. Cancn city is located on the northeastern coast of the Yucatn Peninsula and is essentially a service town for the resort area of Cancn situated on L-shaped Cancn Island (13 miles long by 0.25 mile across). The resort area of Cancn (also called the Zona Hotelera [Hotel Zone]) is linked by a causeway to Cancn city. Cancn Island, with its skyscraper hotels and sprawling resorts, and the coastal area occupied by Cancn city have abundant white sand beaches, palm groves, and coral reefs, with virtually no rainy season, as the jungles in southern Quintana Roo state draw off almost all the yearly rainfall. Originally settled by Maya Indians, the area was first described and named Cancne (Mayan: Vessel at the End of the Rainbow) in 1843 by the American explorer John Lloyd Stephens and the British explorer Frederick Catherwood in their classic work Incidents of Travel in Yucatan (1843). Cancn remained a small fishing-and-gathering settlement of about 100 Maya until 1970, when, after a three-year study of conditions by the Mexican government in association with private interests, the area was selected as a suitable site for an international holiday centre. Within a decade a steady flow of tourists from all parts of the world had established Cancn as a successful experiment in planning an entirely new city and resort area. Severe housing problems persisted, however, even within the service town, where about 30,000 workers live in rudimentary shacks. Cancn city is linked by highway with nearby Puerto Juarez to the north and with Puerto Morelos to the south. An international airport is located 12 miles (19 km) south of the city on the mainland. Pop. (1990) 167,730.