Former Maya ruins on Isla Mujeres Isla Mujeres is a small Caribbean island. Isla Mujeres, Mexico Jan 2007

In Pre-Columbian times the island was sacred to the Maya goddess of childbirth and medicine, Ixchel. When the Spanish arrived in the 16th century they named it "Isla Mujeres" because of the many images of goddesses. The first information available about Isla Mujeres is from the period between 564–1516 AD, when it was part of the Maya province called Ekab. There were 4 Maya provinces in what is today the State of Quintana Roo. The Maya also exploited the salt that the island produced in the "salinas" (small interior lagoons). The salt was used not only for the preservation of food and medicine but also as a generally accepted currency for commerce of goods along the whole Maya region. The Maya goddess Ixchel had a temple in what is today the Hacienda Mundaca (Mundaca's Plantation House). The island was also a favorite stopping place for pirates in the early 1800s. The shallow lagoon on the mainland side of the island was a good place for sailors to sit out major storms, careen their hulls and trade for salt. Pirates Henry Morgan, Jean Lafitte and Hernan Mundaca spent time there. Hernan Mundaca lived on the island for quite some time, building a large hacienda with which he hoped to entice a local beauty, Martiniana (Prisca) Gomez Pantoja, into marriage. She married someone else, to his regret. A small bit of his Hacienda is still there. It has served in the past as a zoo.[citation needed]

A small Maya temple was once located on the southern tip of the island. However, in 1988, Hurricane Gilbert caused extensive damage, leaving most of the foundation but only a very small portion of the temple.[1]

Since the 1970s, along with nearby Cancún, there has been substantial tourist development in Isla Mujeres.[2]

Like much of the rest of the tourism industry, Isla Mujeres was economically devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic, although case numbers remained relatively low on the island.[3][4]