While Mayan settlement of the Yucatán is believed to date as far back as 2,500 B.C. — and the Maya had abandoned their city strongholds before Spanish conquistadores even set foot on Mexican soil — Cancún dates only from the late 1960s.
A group of Mexican government analysts identified the area now known as Cancún as a prime spot for tourism development in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Eager developers soon built high-rise condominiums, luxury resorts, a golf course and other amenities on tracts of land where mangroves and marshes once stood.