Xbec

Xbec (also written X-Bec) is a village and comisaría of the municipality of Buctzotz in northern Yucatán, about 6 kilometers north-west of the town of Buctzotz and some 11 kilometers south-east of Dzilam González. It sits on flat land only 7 meters above sea level. The 2005 count found 515 people here, a number that has hardly changed in half a century: the village had fewer than 100 inhabitants in 1900, grew to around 570 by 1970 and has stayed near 500 to 550 since.

Xbec began as a hacienda. Like most estates in this part of the state it grew henequen, worked by resident peones, and it was a private property rather than a village for most of its history; the municipal records note that it began to appear as a pueblo in 1921 without any formal decree. After the agrarian reform decrees of President Lázaro Cárdenas in 1937 its fields became an ejido, held in common by the villagers, while the main house of the hacienda stayed in private hands.

Today Xbec is a small farming community laid out around a central plaza with a park, a simple church and the casa comisarial, the village's administrative building. There are no visitor services, but it is a pleasant short stop on the back roads between Buctzotz and Dzilam González, the inland route toward Dzilam de Bravo and the Bocas de Dzilam on the coast.