Santa María Acú

Santa María Acú is a village in the municipality of Halachó, in western Yucatán near the Campeche border, about 11.5 km northwest of the town of Halachó as the crow flies. It grew up around a hacienda, and the Yucatán state government still lists Santa María Acú among the municipality's haciendas. It had 1,512 inhabitants in the 2020 census, the fifth-largest community in the municipality.

Acú is a Maya word for the tortoise; the village was simply Acú until 1910, when it was renamed Santa María Acú after the Virgin Mary. Census figures show a small estate community of a few hundred people (468 in 1900, under 400 in the 1920s to 1940s) that grew after the hacienda era, passing 1,000 in the 1980s.

The landmark is the old hacienda chapel, painted red and cream with two slim bell towers and a clock on the façade, standing behind a low wall with arched gateposts. It is the kind of place you stop at on a drive through the henequen country west of Highway 180 rather than a destination in itself: there are no visitor services, and the closest shops, market and buses are in Halachó.