The capital of Campeche is located west of the Yucatan Peninsula and was founded in 1540 in the Mayan settlement of Ah Kim Pech, which gives us the present-day name of Campeche. Given its character as a port, it was the starting point for the conquest and evangelization of the peninsula. Three men of the same name, Francisco de Montejo ‘the Adelantado’, Francisco de Montejo ‘the Sobrino’, and Francisco de Montejo ‘the Mozo’ founded the town of San Francisco de Campeche.

The natural wealth of the region, which includes the logwood tree, used for making dyes, and precious woods, made Campeche one of the viceroyalty’s most prosperous economic hubs between the 17th and 18th centuries. The port was attacked several times by pirates; this is the reason for the wall that protects the city.

Once Francisco de Montejo y León “the Mozo” was established in Campeche, this became his base of operations for the conquest of Yucatán. The Spanish lived around the square, in the present-day district of San Román, while the indigenous people remained in the old pre-Hispanic settlements in the present-day districts of San Francisco and Siete de Agosto.

The historical core of Campeche stands out as a model of urbanization for a Baroque colonial city; it was declared a Zone of Historical Monuments in 1986 and inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as a Historic and Fortified City in 1999.

The historical area comprises 1.81 km2 and is made up of 163 blocks with historical buildings built between the 16th and 19th centuries, of which some were destined for religious worship such as the churches of San Román, San José, San Francisquito, Jesús Nazareno, Nuestra Señora de la Concepción, del Dulce Nombre de Jesús, San Juan, Santa Ana, Santa Lucia, San Francisco, Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Hermitage. Other buildings were intended for educational purposes and welfare services, as well as for civil, ecclesiastical and military authorities, together with private homes, which combine various architectural styles.

One of the most important complexes is the San Román church, located in the neighborhood of the same name, where the Black Christ is found. Meanwhile, the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe was the second in the country to be dedicated to the Virgin of Guadalupe, after the one located on Cerro del Tepeyac in Mexico City.

Some chronicles relate that the first mass on mainland America was held in the place where the church of San Francisco is currently located; however, the current construction dates from 1546. Other areas of colonial architecture that stand out are: the House of Culture, the Carvajal Mansion and the House of the Teniente de Rey.

The center of the city is characterized by a well-defined plan dating from the 16th and 17th centuries, within the area protected by the wall. Outside of the walls the streets form a grid. In the Zone of Historical Monuments, single-level constructions predominate, except for the walled enclosure where two-level buildings abound.

The wall is an emblem of the urban landscape of the city: in its center different races, religions and cultures were mixed, a blending that today is expressed in the city’s festivals, traditions, customs, religious expressions, food, poetry, music and dances, which are a cultural heritage of humanity. The construction of this wall was a result of piracy in the mid-16th century. The development of piracy in the seas of the Americas was an extension of the battles fought in Europe, and in fact was boosted by the monarchs who encouraged the shipowners and experienced captains to sail to the waters of the New World by giving them a “letter of marque,” which was effectively a means of legalizing theft at sea.

The fight by England and France to wrest commercial and political dominance from Spain encouraged the use of privateers and pirates who operated on the shores of Campeche from 1557, and a year later took over the Laguna de Terminos. Several attempts were made to evict them until the Sergeant Major of Veracruz, Alonso Felipe Andrade, expelled them from the Laguna in 1716.

In the year 1686, the governor of Yucatán, Juan Bruno Tello de Guzmán, presented to the council a project to build a wall around the town of Campeche to protect it from the continuous attacks by corsairs and pirates. The proposal was accepted and money was raised with donations from the governor, the bishop of the province, the most prominent residents, and the cession by the city council of the duties that were paid for salt extraction. Both the walls and the bastions were solidly built, with curtain walls whose thickness varies between 2.35 and 2.60 meters at the base, between 2.02 and 2.27 meters at the top, with a height of approximately 8.40 meters. They included the parapet with its allure or wall walk linking the bastions around the city.

Another of the most significant buildings in Campeche is the cathedral, which was renovated in June 1987. Shortly after the work began, a cavity was discovered at the bottom of which three colonial crypts of great historical value were found. These crypts corroborate historical research on the importance of Campeche as a center for cultural exchange. It became clear that the cathedral was the key site for managing and legitimizing all the most important aspects in the daily life of the governing body of society: the imposition of names and surnames through baptism; the practice of worship and evangelization.