Bacalar, Quintana Roo

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This article is about the Mexican locality. For the legendary island sometimes also called "Bacalar", see Bacalao.

Fortress of San Felipe Bacalar

Bacalar is a town in Othón P. Blanco municipality in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, about 40 km north of Chetumal, at 18.67°N, 88.38°W. In the 2005 census the town had a population of 9,833 people.^[1]

The name most likely derives from Mayan: b'ak halal, meaning "surrounded by reeds",^[2] the name of the locality attested at the time of the 16th century arrival of the Spanish.

Bacalar is also the name of the lagoon, Bacalar lagoon on the east side of the town.

Bacalar was a city of the Maya civilization in Pre-Columbian times. This was the first city in the region which the Spanish Conquistadores succeeded in taking and holding in 1543. In 1545 Gaspar Pacheco established the Spanish town here with the name Salamanca de Bacalar. The region of the southern half of what is now Quintana Roo was governed from Bacalar, answerable to the Captain General of Yucatán in Mérida.

Bacalar Lagoon

After the town was sacked by pirates in 17th century, the Fortress de San Felipe Bacalar was completed in 1729, and may still be visited today.

In 1848 Bacalar had a population of about 5,000 people. In 1848 during the Caste War of Yucatán rebellious Chan Santa Cruz Maya conquered the town. It was not retaken by the Mexicans until 1902.

Bacalar was named a "Pueblo Mágico" in 2006.

[edit] Notes

^ INEGI (2005).
^ See entry under "Bak Halal", in Bolles (1997), based on the Cordemex Mayan–Spanish dictionary (Barrera Vásquez et al., 1991).

[edit] References

Barrera Vásquez, Alfredo; Juan Ramón Bastarrachea Manzano and William Brito Sansores (eds.) (1991). Diccionario maya Cordemex: maya-español, español-maya, with collaborations by Refugio Vermont Salas, David Dzul Góngora, and Domingo Dzul Poot, 2nd edition, México D.F.: Editorial Porrúa. ISBN 968-452-487-0. OCLC 26611093. (Spanish) (Yucatec Maya)

Bolles, David (1997–). Combined Dictionary–Concordance of the Yucatecan Mayan Language (revised 2003). Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc. (FAMSI). Retrieved on 2008-04-20.

INEGI (Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informática) (2005). Principales resultados por localidad 2005 (ITER): Quintana Roo (XLS spreadsheet). II Conteo de Población y Vivienda [2005]. INEGI. Retrieved on 2008-04-20.