Fun Fact Friday: Cancún Didn’t Exist Until 1970
Cancún is one of the world’s most visited beach destinations — but it was essentially invented. In 1970, when construction began, the site had three residents and zero hotels. Today, 21 million tourists arrive every year.
A City Born From an Algorithm
In the late 1960s, Mexico’s government was searching for a way to compete with Caribbean tourism hotspots like the Bahamas and Puerto Rico. Their solution was unprecedented: use a computer algorithm to select the ideal location for an entirely new resort city, analyzing factors like weather patterns, beach quality, and accessibility.
The algorithm pointed to a narrow barrier island on Mexico’s Caribbean coast — remote, swampy, and largely untouched. Construction began on January 23, 1970. On that date, Cancún had exactly three residents, all caretakers of a coconut plantation. A nearby fishing village called Puerto Juárez held about 117 people. That was it.
Ancient Roots, Modern Skyline
Long before resort hotels, this coastline was Maya territory. Archaeological sites like El Rey and El Meco show that the area was part of active coastal trade routes, and the name Cancún itself comes from the Mayan language — most commonly translated as “place of the golden snake” or “nest of snakes,” though the exact meaning remains debated.
The Spanish arrived in the Yucatán in the early 1500s, folding the region into colonial New Spain. But Cancún itself was mostly ignored — too remote, too swampy, too mosquito-ridden for colonial ambitions. After the conquest, disease, warfare, and famine devastated the local Maya population, leaving only small scattered settlements behind. The area slept quietly for centuries.
From Three Residents to 35,000 Hotel Rooms
Even after the government selected the site, investors were skeptical. No one wanted to bet on an unknown strip of jungle, so the federal government financed the first nine hotels itself. It worked. A building boom through the 1980s and 1990s transformed the island, and Cancún emerged as one of Mexico’s two most iconic resorts, alongside Acapulco. Today there are over 190 hotels in Cancún’s Hotel Zone, more than 35,000 hotel rooms in total, and a record 21 million tourists visited in 2023.
What’s Beneath the Surface
Cancún’s appeal isn’t just white sand. The city sits along the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef — the second largest coral reef system in the world — making its waters some of the best snorkeling and diving in the Caribbean. But perhaps the most unusual attraction lies underwater: an open-air sculpture museum with over 500 life-size figures submerged off the coast, one of the largest underwater sculpture parks in the world. The pieces are designed to attract coral growth, functioning as artificial reef structures while doubling as an art installation.
The Turtles That Keep Returning
Cancún is also one of the most important sea turtle nesting sites in the entire Caribbean. Nesting season runs from May through October, peaking in July and August, when female turtles — some having traveled thousands of miles — return to the exact beaches where they were born to lay their eggs.
Mexico has made sea turtle protection a genuine priority. Throughout nesting season, conservation volunteers and organizations patrol the beaches around Cancún and the Riviera Maya. The effort is working: after decades of decline, sea turtle populations along the Yucatán coast have shown real signs of recovery. In the 2024 season alone, over 1.2 million hatchlings were released into the ocean.
From an algorithm’s output to a city of millions — Cancún’s story is a strange and fascinating one. A place built entirely on intention, sitting on top of centuries of civilization that nobody planned at all.