Opichén

Opichén is a small town in western Yucatán, the seat of the municipality of the same name, on the road between Muna and Maxcanú: about 22 km northwest of Muna and 20 km southeast of Maxcanú, and some 52 km southwest of Mérida as the crow flies. It had 5,412 inhabitants in the 2020 census, up from about 2,100 in 1900. The Maya name is usually read as "inside the well" or "inside the cave", from op, inside, and ch'en, well or cave, a fitting name for a municipality whose best-known sight is underground.

Before the conquest the area belonged to the domain of the Tutul Xiú lords of Maní. In colonial times it was given in encomienda, with grants recorded from 1607 to 1705, and in 1825 it became part of the Camino Real Bajo district. In 1847, at the start of the Caste War, Opichén and nearby Calcehtok saw fierce fighting. Around 1900 the town did well from maize and cattle, and in 1911 the politician Delio Moreno Cantón launched a strong opposition movement against the state government of Nicolás Cámara Vales from here.

The 18th-century church of San Bartolomé, a plain stone building with a stepped gable, stands in the centre of town; the main park has a bandstand and a children's playground; the Capilla de la Mejorada is another 18th-century chapel in town. The town holds three fiestas: its traditional fiesta from 23 to 27 February, San Bernabé from 8 to 12 June, and San Bartolomé, its patron, at the end of August. Opichén is the closest town to the Calcehtok caves, a few kilometres west in its own comisaría of Calcehtok, a village that grew up around an old cattle and henequen hacienda; the Maya city of Oxkintok lies just beyond, in Maxcanú municipality.