Yucatán,[b] officially the Free and Sovereign State of Yucatán,[c] is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, constitute the 32 federal entities of Mexico. It comprises 106 separate municipalities, and its capital city is Mérida.
Located on the northern part of the Yucatán Peninsula, it is bordered by the states of Campeche to the southwest and Quintana Roo to the southeast, with the Gulf of Mexico off its northern coast.
Before the arrival of Spaniards, the peninsula was a very important region for the Maya civilization that reached the peak of its development here, where the Maya founded the cities of Chichen Itza, Izamal, Motul, Mayapan, Ek' Balam, and Ichkanzihóo (also called T'ho), now Mérida.
After the Spanish conquest of Yucatán (early 16th to late 17th centuries), the Yucatán Peninsula became a single administrative and political entity, the Captaincy General of Yucatán. Following Mexican independence in 1821 the local Governor proclaimed independence. Yucatán became part of the First Mexican Empire in December 1821. Following the collapse of the Empire in March 1823, the first Republic of Yucatán (founded in May 1823) voluntarily negotiated annexation to the Federal Republic of United Mexican States on December 21, 1823. On March 16, 1841, as a result of cultural and political conflicts around the federal pact, Yucatán declared its independence from Mexico. forming a second Republic of Yucatán. Eventually on July 14, 1848, Yucatán was forced to rejoin Mexico. In 1858, in the middle of the Caste War of Yucatán, the state of Yucatán was divided for the first time, establishing Campeche as a separate state (officially in 1863). During the Porfiriato, in 1902, the state of Yucatán was divided again to form the Federal territory that later became the present state of Quintana Roo.
Before the arrival of Spaniards in the Yucatán Peninsula, the name of this region was Mayab.[18] In the Yucatec Maya language, mayab means "flat",[19] and is the source of the word "Maya" itself.
The name Yucatán, also assigned to the peninsula, came from early explorations of the Conquistadors from Europe. Three different explanations for the origin of the name have been proposed.
The first two state that the name resulted from confusion between the Mayan inhabitants and the first Spanish explorers around 1517:
Probably the first person to propose the "I do not understand" version was the friar Toribio de Benavente Motolinía. In his book Historia de los indios de la Nueva España (History of the Indians of New Spain) he says
because talking with those Indians of the coast, whatever the Spanish asked the Indians responded: Tectetán, Tectetán which means I don't understand you, I don't understand you; they corrupted the word, and not understanding what the Indians said, they said: Yucatán is the name of this land; and the same happened in a place, a cape, which they also called Cape Cotoch; and Cotoch in that language means house.[20]
The third proposed explanation comes from Bernal Díaz del Castillo. In his book Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España (True History of the Conquest of New Spain), he says Yucatá means "land of yucas",[21] a plant that was cultivated by the Maya and was an important food source for them.[22]
The origin of the first settlements has not been scientifically confirmed, although the presence of first humans in the area dates from the late Pleistocene or ice age (about 10,000–12,0