Noc Ac

Noc Ac is a subcomisaría in the north-west of Mérida municipality, west of the Mérida–Progreso highway and about 12 km north of the city centre as the crow flies, in the low, flat country that runs towards the coast. Its neighbours include Cheumán and Sierra Papacal. It had 532 inhabitants in the 2020 census, up from 392 in 2000 and around 250 a century earlier. The Maya name means 'the overturned turtle', from noc, turned upside down, and ac, turtle.

Noc Ac grew up as a henequen hacienda. After President Lázaro Cárdenas's agrarian reform decrees, from 1937 its land became an ejido worked by the villagers, while the old hacienda compound stayed in private hands. The village's best-known son is Francisco Luna Kan, who was born here and went on to become governor of Yucatán.

Today Noc Ac is a small, quiet village set around the open ground in front of the old hacienda, whose gateway can be seen across the field. Its other draw is underground: the village has a cenote that is well known to speleologists and is also visited by tourists, and another cenote, Kambul, lies a short way from the village. There are no services for visitors, so come prepared and ask locally before going down into any cenote. The village combines easily with Cheumán and Sierra Papacal on a drive through the north of the municipality.