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The Yucatán peninsula is about 70,000 square miles, mostly in SE Mexico, separating the Caribbean Sea from the Gulf of Mexico It comprises the states of Yucatán, Campeche, and Quintana Roo, Mexico; Belize; and part of Petén, Guatemala. Mérida and Campeche, Mexico and Belize City, Belize are the chief cities.People who live there now are mostly the modern descendants of the Maya. The peninsula is largely a low, flat, limestone tableland rising to 500 feet high in the south. To the north and west the plain continues as the Campeche Bank, stretching under shallow water . The eastern coast rises in low cliffs in the north and there are bays and paralleled by islands in the south; Cozumel is the largest island. Short ranges of hills cross the peninsula at scattered intervals. The only rivers are those flowing E and NW |