Dzilam González

Dzilam González is the seat of a large rural municipality in northern Yucatán, a town of 6,169 people in the 2020 census. It lies about 10 kilometers inland from the Gulf coast, roughly 13 kilometers south of the fishing port of Dzilam de Bravo and 12 kilometers east of Dzidzantún, and about 90 kilometers north-east of Mérida. The Maya word dzilam is usually translated as "peeled" or "stripped bare"; the surname González was added in 1825 to tell the inland town apart from the port of the same name.

Before the conquest it lay in the Maya province of Ah Kin Chel. The ancient city lies under the colonial and modern town, which has destroyed much of it, but a large rubble mound still rises beside a street near the center. In the colonial period the coast had no Maya village of its own, only the port that served Dzilam, which was an encomienda of Juan de Montejo.

In 1825 Dzilam was placed in the Partido de la Costa, governed from Izamal. From 1900 its municipality also covered the port, until Dzilam de Bravo became a municipality in its own right in 1921. During the Revolution, in 1913, revolutionary forces under General Juan Campos marched from Dzilam González to fight federal troops at Buctzotz.

Today it is a farming town of maize, onions, beans and fruit, with a market, a plaza and a yellow parish church with a scalloped bell gable. The municipality has cenotes called Ayim, Chen Cimen and Labom. The patron saint is San Antonio de Padua, honoured from 10 to 13 June. For most visitors Dzilam González is the last town on the way to Dzilam de Bravo and the boat trips into the Bocas de Dzilam, and it is worth a short stop to see the mound and the plaza.