Campeche

The silence of the city of Campeche is both magical and moving. This city, guarded like a precious relic by its inhabitants, is proud to celebrate its 465 years of existence. Possessing one of the best preserved historic centers in Mexico, it was declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1999. What was once the fortress of the Spanish crown in the Gulf of Mexico is now a delightful city that appears to have been designed by the gods.

Campeche is the westernmost of the three states comprising the Yucatán Peninsula. It is covered by forest and enjoys a tropical climate, with rains in the summer and autumn. The city of Campeche, its capital, is located on the east coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Its historic center consists of three districts: the walled section whose mansions were inhabited by the Spaniards during the colonial era; the San Francisco district to the north of the fortification, where the Mayan population lived and San Román in the south, where Mexican indigenous peoples and mulattos brought in from the Caribbean Islands settled.

Campeche is a beautiful city built in an elongated checkerboard shape due to the characteristics of the coast. The remains of the walls that encircled the town in the 18th century can still be seen at various points in the city today. Two of the four gates and seven bulwarks of incalculable architectural interest have been preserved. As the Campeche historian Román Piña Chan remarked, "Campeche’s history is written in the stones, bulwarks, doors and walls that speak to us of the past, of Spanish navigators and bloodthirsty pirates.