The island Cozumel

The name of the island of Cozumel is derived from the Indian word "kusam" for swallow. The small island is located 15 km east of the Mexican Yucatan peninsula and is part of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. At about 45 km in length and just under 17 km wide Cozumel is only about 1/3 as large as e.g. Gran Canaria. 

Today more than 73,000 people live on Cozumel, the largest part of them in the capital city, San Miguel de Cozumel.  Climate The island is located in a part of the Caribbean in the tropical climate zone, which constantly gets high temperatures and humid heat climate, has lush vegetation and regular heavy showers. The average daily temperatures vary over the whole year only between 29 and 33 degrees C. At night, the average temperatures are between 19 and 24 degrees C all year round. 

The amount of precipitation is not quite so evenly distributed. Here, March stands out with only 32 mm and is a relatively dry month, September and October, each with approx. 240 mm can be called rainy season.

Current temperatures in Cancun Tourism Cozumel offers many interesting opportunities for tourists, especially for divers. The famous Jacques Cousteau often reported in the 1960s on the extensive coral reefs in the environment of the island.

Cozumel has its own airport since the end of the 1970s. Cruise ship tourism, in particular from the USA, has inspired the tourism industry here and made it the principal economic income of the island. 

Since 2009, the "Ironman Mexico" is always fought on the island. Thousands of participants are faced with multiple challenges including almost 4 km swimming, 180 km cycling and 42.2 km marathon running. History of Cozumel The Spanish conquistador Juan de Grijalva" discovered the island in 1518 and called it "Isla de Santa Cruz". A year later Hernán Cortes began a conquest against the Aztecs. At that time approximately 40,000 Mayans were living on Cozumel.

The largest part of them didn't die in the fight, but by the pox virus that the Spanish had imported. There are still some Mayan ruins from this time on Cozumel.

These include the ruins of “San Gervasio" roughly in the center of the island. In 2005, Cozumel was directly affected by hurricanes no less than twice in a row. Things to know Cozumel is located only about 150 km away from that large meteorite crate on the northern edge of the Mexican peninsula Yucatán, which likely exterminated the dinosaurs 65 million years ago and caused the end of the Cretaceous period.

The island Cozumel
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