Xmatkuil

Xmatkuil is a small village of Mérida municipality about 10 km south of the city centre, at the end of Calle 50, inside the Cuxtal Ecological Reserve. To most people in Yucatán the name means one thing: the Feria Yucatán Xmatkuil, the state fair, which has been held on grounds beside the old hacienda since 1974 and draws more than a million visitors from across the peninsula each year. The Maya name is usually translated as 'the place where you pray to God'. The village itself is small, with 357 inhabitants in the 2005 count.

The hacienda began as a farming estate and was given over to henequen during the 19th-century boom, when the plantations around Mérida supplied the world with sisal fibre. After President Lázaro Cárdenas's agrarian reform of 1937 its fields became an ejido and the former owners kept a 150-hectare core; the remaining main house has since been used only by the owner's family. On 28 June 1993 it was included, with Hunxectamán, San Antonio Tahdzibichén, San Ignacio Tesip, San Nicolás Dzoyaxché, San Pedro Chimay and Santa Cruz Palomeque, among the seven haciendas protected by the new Cuxtal reserve. From the road you can still see the red-and-white gate pillars and the tall brick chimney of the old machine house.

The fair began as a livestock, industrial, agricultural and craft exhibition and grew into the largest fair on the Yucatán Peninsula. Today it fills the fairground with livestock shows, rodeo, crafts, food stands, rides, children's activities and big concerts at the Centro de Espectáculos Montejo. It runs for about three to four weeks in November: the 2026 edition is scheduled from Friday 6 to Sunday 29 November, with Christian Nodal among the announced headliners. Outside fair season Xmatkuil is a quiet place, a good starting point for a drive past the other Cuxtal haciendas such as San Ignacio Tesip, San Pedro Chimay and Tahdzibichén.