The highlighted green area is Campeche state.

Campeche is part of the enormous plain comprising the Yucatán peninsula, which it shares with Yucatán and Quintana Roo. It was inhabited by groups from the ancient Mayan culture, traces of which can still be seen in places like Edzná and Calakmul. On the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, in what was once the Mayan city of Ah Kin Pech (“place of the sun”), Francisco de Montejo el Mozo ordered the construction of Villa de San Francisco de Campeche.

Owing to its strategic location, it suffered numerous pirate attacks, as a result of which a defense system of walls and forts was built, traces of which still remain, giving it its distinctive appearance. The state?s surroundings are tropical, and unlike its neighbors on the peninsula, it has several rivers, in addition to beaches, archaeological sites, colonial buildings, nineteenth-century haciendas and nature reserves with an astonishing variety of flora and fauna.