Campeche

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Campeche is the name of both a state in Mexico and its capital city. This article is about the state. For the city, see: Campeche, Campeche; for the Puerto Rican artist, see José Campeche.

Campeche

Location

Statistics
Capital	Campeche
Area	50,812 km² Ranked 18th
Population (2005 census)	754,730 Ranked 30th
HDI (2004)	0.8189 - high Ranked 9th
Governor (2003-2009)	Jorge Carlos Hurtado Valdez (PRI)
Federal Deputies	PRI:2
Federal Senators	PRI:2 PAN:1
ISO 3166-2 Postal Abbr.	MX-CAM Camps.

The State of Campeche is a state in the south-east region of the Mexican Republic. It is bordered by the Mexican states of Yucatán to the north east, Quintana Roo to the east, and Tabasco to the south west. To the south it is bordered by the Petén department of Guatemala and to the west by the Gulf of Mexico.

The area of Campeche is 56,798 km² (about 21,924 square miles), and the population was only 754,730 inhabitants at the 2005 census. This makes Campeche one of the states with the lowest population densities in Mexico (fifth behind Baja California Sur, Durango, Sonora, and Chihuahua).

The capital city of the state is the city of San Francisco de Campeche, which was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

In addition to the city of Campeche, the state of Campeche includes the cities of Champotón, Ciudad del Carmen, and Escárcega, the towns of Bolonchén, Calkiní, Dzitbalché, Hecelchakán, Hopelchén, Lerma, Tenabo, and Sabancuy, and many ruins of the Maya civilization such as Becán, Calakmul, Silvituc, Dzibilnocac, Edzna, Hocchob, Holactún, Rio Bec, Uxul, Xicalango, Xpuhil, and Xtampak.

Campeche is Spanish for "logwood".

1 History
2 Municipalities
3 Major communities
4 Demographics
5 External links

[edit] History

Before the Spanish Conquest, the territory that now is the State of Campeche was occupied by the Maya. The most important sites of the Classic Maya Period are Calakmul, Rio Bec, Edzna, Hormiguero and Becan. Another important site is the island of Jaina, just off the coast in the Gulf of Mexico.

Campeche was discovered by the Spaniards on March 22, 1517 during an exploration expedition led by Francisco Fernandez de Córdoba. Among the crew there were Bernal Díaz del Castillo and Antón de Alaminos.

The name of Campeche comes from the Mayan word "Cam Pech", which means "A Place of Serpents and Ticks".

The State of Campeche was long a part of Yucatán and shared its history through the mid 19th century. Campeche broke away from Yucatán and became a separate state of the United Mexican States on August 7, 1857.