Cancún is a coastal city in Mexico's easternmost state, Quintana Roo, on the Yucatán Peninsula that separates Mexico from the island of Cuba in the Greater Antilles. The Cancún region is sometimes known as the Mexican Caribbean or the Mayan Riviera.
Cancún is the municipal seat of the Benito Juárez municipality and a world-renowned balneario and tourist resort. The city center is located on the mainland which connects the Nichupté and lagoons to a narrow 7-shaped island where the modern beachfront hotels are located in the tourist centric hotel zone.
Today's Cancún was born in the 1970s as a popular tourist destination, boosted by massive foreign investment in the hotel industry. The city has continued to grow into a perfect combination of natural beauty and man-made facilities. It is an ideal place for visitors to come, year after year, later returning home with unforgettable memories and experiences. Cancún exists today as a mixture of its a pre-Hispanic past, a vanguard culture, unlimited entertainment, and enclaves of unspoiled nature.
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| Coba, a Mayan pyramids |
There are some (non-relative) small Mayan vestiges of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization in Cancún. El Rey (Las Ruinas del Rey) is located in the Hotel Zone. El Meco, a more substantial site, is found on the mainland just outside the city limits on the road north to Punta Sam.
Close by in the Riviera Maya and the Grand Costa Maya, there are sites such as Cobá and Muyil (Riviera) the small Polé (now Xcaret), and Kohunlich, Kinichná, Dzibanché, Oxtankah, Tulum, and Chacchoben, in the south of the state. Chichén Itzá is in the neighboring state of Yucatán.
Ave. Tulum is the main north-south artery (connecting downtown to the airport, which is surrounded by Selva (low jungle) some 30 km (19 mi) to south) of El Centro. Tulum is bisected by Ave. Cobá. East of Ave. Tulum, Cobá becomes Ave. Kukulcan which serves as the primary road that runs through the long 7-shaped hotel zone. Ave. Tulum is terminated on the north side by Ave. Paseo José López Portillo which connects to the main highway west to Chichén Itzá and Mérida. Another major north-south road is Ave. Bonampak which runs roughly parallel to Ave. Tulum. The main ferry to Isla Mujeres is located in Puerto Juarez on Ave. Paseo José López Portillo.
On the opposite side of the island from the Caribbean Sea is the Nichupté Lagoon, which is used for boating excursions and jet-ski jungle tours.Cancún is also the gateway to the Riviera Maya, another tourist pull in the area, where people go attracted by the numerous archaeological sites, as Cobá and Tulum, the many cenotes, charming towns as Playa del Carmen and theme parks such as Xcaret Eco Park, Xel-Ha Marine Park and Xplor.
English Sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor has created a monumental underwater art museum in the National Marine Park of Cancun. The Museo Subacuatico de Arte (MUSA), the Cancun underwater museum, will consist of more than 400 life-sized sculptures creating artificial reefs for marine life to colonise and inhabit. The works are located in clear shallow waters and visible to divers, snorkelers and visitors in glass-bottomed boats.
# taken from Cancún Mexico
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