Museo Arqueológico de la Costa Grande

The Museo Arqueológico de la Costa Grande stands right on the Playa Principal in downtown Zihuatanejo, at the end of the Paseo del Pescador by the small Plaza Olof Palme, which makes it one of the few museums in Mexico on a beach. It occupies a single-storey building from 1947 with stone columns and sloping tiled roofs, and opened as a museum on 31 July 1993. The municipality runs it, while the INAH is responsible for the conservation of the pieces. In April 2025 it reopened after a rehabilitation that cost a little over 4.8 million pesos and restored the building's structure.

Its six rooms give an overview of human life on the Costa Grande, the coast that stretches from Acapulco west to the mouth of the Balsas River. Three rooms cover the region's archaeology in the Preclassic, Classic and Postclassic periods, two deal with the colonial era and one with the living presence of the region's Indigenous peoples. On display are pottery, clay figurines, obsidian tools and weapons, and ornaments and utensils made from seashells, including pieces from the Cerro de La Madera site in Zihuatanejo, with signs of contact with the Olmec, Teotihuacan, Mexica and Tarascan worlds. The displays explain the province of Cihuatlán, which in the late 15th century paid tribute to the Mexica in shells, cacao, basketry and textiles, and the colonial years when Zihuatanejo and Acapulco were landmarks for ships searching for a sea route west across the Pacific.

It is a modest museum and a visit takes little time, but it is cheap, right on the waterfront, and a good introduction to a coast most visitors know only for its beaches. It is also a cultural venue, hosting talks, exhibitions, dance and book presentations, and staff give guided visits on request.