Discover the History of Ambergris Caye | Caye International Bank
Ambergris Caye in Belize has a lot of beauty and so much history. Learn about the history of the island and her people for your trip.
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About this Belize website
Ambergris Caye in Belize has a lot of beauty and so much history. Learn about the history of the island and her people for your trip.
- Publisher
- cayebank.bz
- First discovered
- 13 September 2026
- Last checked
- 14 September 2026
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Ambergris Caye and the Mayan Empire
The Mayan Empire plays a vital role in what would eventually become Belize. With a civilization that’s believed to have emerged around 2,000 BCE and flourished until about 1,000 AD, the Mayans made the island a major trading area. That included engineering some geographical changes to the peninsula.There is evidence that the Mayans wanted to enhance trading along the tip of the Yucatan Peninsula. Part of the plan involved digging a channel that would separate Ambergris Caye from Mexico. That channel could be used to bring goods into the area as well as move them out to other parts of the Empire. The channel also made it easier to transport goods to and from what’s known today as Belize.
European Explorers Reach the Yucatan Peninsula
The first European explorers reached the area during the first years of the 16th century. While the Mayan Empire was in decline, Ambergris Caye was still a relatively busy trading post. That began to change as first the Spanish and then the French began to move in and through the area.Over the rest of the 16th and into the 17th centuries, the Mayans moved further from Ambergris Caye. While European settlers exhibited little interest in settling permanently in the area, the Yucatan Peninsula did serve as a popular and efficient place to land and move inland. A desire by the remaining Mayans to keep interaction with the newcomers to a minimum eventually led to the abandonment of Ambergris Caye