Yucatán Peninsula

The Yucatán Peninsula separates the Caribbean Sea from the Gulf of Mexico. The peninsula lies east of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, a northwestern geographic partition separating the region of Central America from the rest of North America.

The peninsula comprises the Mexican states of Yucatán, Campeche, and Quintana Roo; the northern part of the nation of Belize; and Guatemala's northern territory (department) of El Petén. Mexican states situated on the isthmus to the west of the peninsula include Chiapas and Tabasco.

The peninsula is mainly composed of limestone. Cenotes or sinkholes are widespread; they were the main water source for both ancient and contemporary Maya people. Palentoligists have theorisied that the dinosaurs became extinct when an asteroid hit the earth. According the the Alvarez hypothesis the Yucatán Peninsula is site of this impact. The impact centering on the current-day town of Chicxulub. See Chicxulub Crater.

The boundaries between northern Guatemala (El Peten), Mexico (Campeche and Quintana Roo states) and western Belize are still occupied by the largest continuous tracts of tropical rainforest in Central America; these forests are suffering extensive deforestation. Short- and tall tropical jungles were the predominant natural vegetation types of the peninsula.

The Yucatán Peninsula roughly coincides with the zone of influence of the Pre-Columbian Maya civilization. There are many Maya archeological sites throughout the peninsula; some of the better-known are Chichen-Itza, Tikal, Tulum and Uxmal [http://mayaruins.com/yucmap.html. Indigenous Maya and Mestizos of partial Maya descent still make up a sizable portion of the region's population, and Mayan languages are still widely spoken there.

There is a popular myth that the name Yucatan comes from the Yucatec Mayan word for "listen how they speak" supposedly said by those local Indians when the first Spanish explorers asked what the area was called.

The Yucatán Peninsula has, since the 1970's, been developed as a fast growing tourist resort, especially in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. Since then, the small town of Cancun in the northeast of the peninsula has been developed into a thriving city, which, along with the Riviera Maya which stretches the East Coast between Cancun and Tulum, currently has more than 50,000 beds, and is visited by many thousands of tourists year on year.

The peninsula is also, like much of the Caribbean, within the Atlantic Hurricane Belt. The 2005 Atlantic Hurricane Season was a particularly bad season for Mexico's tourism industry, with two forceful category 4 storms hitting, including Hurricane Emily and Hurricane Wilma. Fortunately, the 2006 Atlantic Hurricane Season forecast includes only a 33% chance of the peninsula being hit.

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