Ticul is a city and the municipal seat of the

Ticul Municipality Ticul de Morales Municipality is one of the 106 municipalities in Yucatán State, Mexico. It is located in the western part of the state at () 100 km south of the state capital city of Mérida. The municipality, which has an area of 355.12 ...

Yucatán Yucatán (, also , , ; yua, Yúukatan ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Yucatán,; yua, link=no, Xóot' Noj Lu'umil Yúukatan. is one of the 31 states which comprise the political divisions of Mexico, federal entities of Mexico. I ...

in Mexico. It is located some 100 km south of the state capital city of Mérida. In 2000 Ticul had a population of about 28,000 people. The majority are ethnically

Maya Maya may refer to: Civilizations * Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America ** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples ** Maya language, the languages of the Maya peoples * Maya (Ethiopia), a populat ...

. Ticul was a town of the

Pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, th ...

Maya civilization The Maya civilization () of the Mesoamerican people is known by its ancient temples and glyphs. Its Maya script is the most sophisticated and highly developed writing system in the pre-Columbian Americas. It is also noted for its art, archit ...

. 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 ''conquistadores'' against the Late Postclassic Maya states and polities in the Yucatán Peninsula, a vast limestone plain covering south-eastern Mexico, northern Gu ...

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 Yucatán state. 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 ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and por ...

produced there. Over half the population still speaks the

Maya language The Mayan languagesIn 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 as ...

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