Oxcum

With 1,407 residents counted in 2020, Oxcum ranks among the larger comisarías of Umán. It had only 230 people in 1900 and 1,175 by 2010, when it was the municipality's fourth-biggest settlement after the town of Umán, Bolón and Dzibikak. The village is about 7 km north-north-west of Umán and roughly 15 km west-south-west of downtown Mérida as the crow flies.

Oxcum, too, was once a hacienda. Estates came late to Yucatán, only from the end of the 17th century, and the countryside around Mérida was one of the first areas to have them, growing maize at first and henequen afterwards. In 1937, under the agrarian reform decrees of President Lázaro Cárdenas, Oxcum's fields were turned into an ejido, but the hacienda's main buildings remained privately owned. Every three years villagers elect a comisario municipal, and the ejido members pick a commissioner of their own.

Don't come expecting visitor facilities. This is a working village of the former henequen belt, now at the fringe of greater Mérida. The heart of it is a wide, open park with a small, old stone arch, and paved streets run out from there between houses and stone walls. Give it a brief look while touring Umán's former hacienda villages, alongside Dzibikak and Hunxectamán a few kilometres to the south.