Tulum Municipality (, ) is one of the eleven municipalities that make up 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 ...

Quintana Roo Quintana Roo, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Quintana Roo, is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, constitute the 32 administrative divisions of Mexico, federal entities of Mexico. It is divided into municipalities of ...

. It became a municipality when it was formed on 13 March 2008, at which time it was separated from Solidaridad Municipality. Tulum is home to the

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 ...

archaeological sites of Tulum and Cobá.

Geography

The municipality of Tulum borders the municipalities of Solidaridad to the north and Felipe Carrillo Puerto to the south, in the state of

. It also borders

Chemax Municipality Chemax Municipality (, “monkey's tree”) is a municipality in the Mexican state of Yucatán containing 1,098.6 km2 of land and located roughly 185 km east of the city of Mérida. History There is no accurate data on when the to ...

and Valladolid Municipality in the state of

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. ...

on the northwest, and the

Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere, located south of the Gulf of Mexico and southwest of the Sargasso Sea. It is bounded by the Greater Antilles to the north from Cuba ...

on the east.

Orography and hydrography

Like most of the Yucatan Peninsula Tulum is entirely flat with a gentle slope towards the sea, so from west to east, the area never reaches an altitude higher than above sea level. The municipality is above sea level on average. Like the rest of the peninsula's surface the land has a

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

base that does not allow the formation of surface water flows such as rivers and streams; the water instead flows in underground rivers that sometimes rise to the surface in the

cenote A cenote ( or ; ) is a natural pit, or sinkhole, resulting when a collapse of limestone bedrock exposes groundwater. The term originated on the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico, where the ancient Maya commonly used cenotes for water supplies, and ...

s. Lakes and cenotes are the major bodies of water in the municipality.

Communities

The municipality consists of 170 populated localities, plus an additional 224 unpopulated localities, and includes part of a biosphere reserve ( Sian Ka'an, which lies mostly in neighboring Felipe Carrillo Puerto Municipality). The largest localities (cities, towns, and villages) are: Tulum QR.JPG, Tulum Francisco Hu May QR.JPG, Francisco Hu May Macario Gomez QR.JPG, Macario Gomez Manuel Antonio Hay QR.JPG, Manuel Antonio Hay

Demographics

Tulum has 46,721 inhabitants according to the 2020 census, a figure that reflects over five percent annual growth since the last census in 2010. There is an additional 15,000 to 20,000 people living and working in Tulum as part of its floating population. That number rises and falls with the tourist season and is not reflected in the census figures.

References

{{Quintana Roo 01 Municipalities of Quintana Roo