Ticul is a city in the

Mexican state A Mexican State (), officially the Free and Sovereign State (), is a constituent federative entity of Mexico according to the Constitution of Mexico. Currently there are 31 states, each with its own constitution, government, state governor, a ...

Yucatán Yucatán, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Yucatán, 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. ...

. It serves as the municipal seat of the surrounding municipality of the same name and is located some 100 km south of the state capital, Mérida. In 2000 Ticul had a population of about 28,000 people. The majority are ethnically

Maya Maya may refer to: Ethnic groups * Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America ** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples ** Mayan languages, the languages of the Maya peoples * Maya (East Africa), a p ...

. Ticul was a town of the

Pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era, also known as the pre-contact era, or as the pre-Cabraline era specifically in Brazil, spans from the initial peopling of the Americas in the Upper Paleolithic to the onset of European col ...

Maya civilization The Maya civilization () was a Mesoamerican civilization that existed from antiquity to the early modern period. It is known by its ancient temples and glyphs (script). The Maya script is the most sophisticated and highly developed writin ...

. It has been continuously occupied since at least the 7th century BC. After the

Spanish conquest of Yucatán The Spanish conquest of Yucatán was the campaign undertaken by the Spanish Empire, Spanish ''conquistadores'' against the Mesoamerican chronology, Late Postclassic Maya civilization, Maya states and polities in the Yucatán Peninsula, a vast ...

Ticul was reestablished as a Spanish colonial town in 1549. The Republic of Yucatán granted Ticul the status of a city in 1847. The city is nicknamed ''La Perla del Sur'' ("The Pearl of the South"), as it is in the southern part of the state of Yucatán. Ticul has long been known for the red

pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other raw materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. The place where such wares are made by a ''potter'' is al ...

produced there. Over half the population still speaks the

Maya language The Mayan languages In linguistics, it is conventional to use ''Mayan'' when referring to the languages, or an aspect of a language. In other academic fields, ''Maya'' is the preferred usage, serving as both a singular and plural noun, and a ...

as their first tongue, although Spanish is also understood. The pork dish ''poc-chuc'' is a well known local specialty.

References

Populated places in Yucatán Municipality seats in Yucatán {{Yucatán-geo-stub