| Cabo San Lucas | |||
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| View into Cabo Harbor | |||
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Cabo San Lucas
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| Coordinates: | |||
| Country | Mexico | ||
| State | Baja California Sur | ||
| Elevation | 66 ft (20 m) | ||
| Population (2010) | |||
| • City | 68,463 | ||
| • Urban | 68,463 | ||
Cabo San Lucas (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈkaβo san ˈlukas], Cape Saint Luke), commonly called Cabo, is a city at the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula, in the municipality of Los Cabos in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur. As of the 2010 census, the population was 68,463 people.[1] It is the third-largest city in Baja California Sur after La Paz and San José del Cabo (although it is only slightly less populous than San José del Cabo), it has experienced very rapid growth and development, often with adverse environmental impact.
Cabo is known for its sandy beaches, world-class scuba diving locations, balnearios, the distinctive sea arch El Arco de Cabo San Lucas, and abundant marine life. The Los Cabos Corridor has become a heavily trafficked holiday destination with numerous resorts and timeshares along the coast between San Lucas and San José del Cabo.
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Archaeological excavations have shown evidence of continual human habitation in the area for at least 10,000 years.[2] When the first Europeans arrived, they encountered nomadic groups of Pericú surviving on a subsistence diet based on the gathering of fruit, seeds, roots, and shellfish, as well as hunting and fishing. They lived a Neolithic lifestyle, without metals.
According to Hatsutaro's narrative contained in the book Kaigai Ibun (as written by David Waldner) when he arrived at Cabo San Lucas in May 1842 there were only two houses and about twenty inhabitants. However, American authors such as Henry Edwards and J. Ross Browne claim that Cabo San Lucas's founder was an Englishman named Thomas Ritchie, aka Old Tom Ritchie. J. Ross Browne says Ritchie arrived there about 1828, while Edwards says that he died in October 1874.
A fishing village began growing in the area when in 1917 an American company built a floating platform to catch tuna and ten years later founded Compañía de Productos Marinos S.A. The plant lasted several years in operation and experts in the area say that this tuna plant was the beginning of development at Cabo San Lucas.
The warmth of the waters at Cabo San Lucas, the beauty of its beaches, the abundance of sport fish, and nearby surfing motivated a great number of both foreign and Mexican vacationers to spend their vacations in large-scale tourist developments there, starting from 1974 when the Mexican government created the infrastructure to turn Cabo San Lucas into a major center for tourism in Mexico. Upon completion of the Transpeninsular highway, tourist developments in Los Cabos often proceeded relatively unchecked. However, the rapid loss of vast stretches of desert and marine habitat has made the development of Cabo San Lucas controversial.
Until fairly recently, Mexico's unique and fragile environmental treasures were on their own and subjected to the predation of developers acting in concert with government agencies interested only in low-end tourist bonanzas. There is however, a growing collection of activists and attorneys now involved in preserving many of Baja's desert habitats, marine mammals and pristine stretches of coastline. A number of agencies including, The Gulf of California Conservation Fund and The Center for Environmental Law in La Paz are challenging the despoliation of wetlands and other ecosystems from Cabo to Ensenada. In the face of a growing international public demand for corporate driven ecological stewardship, higher-end resorts in the Los Cabos area are increasingly sensitive to their environmental impact and are taking initial steps to institute sustainable practices like reducing water usage and non-recyclable trash output.
The continued economic growth within Cabo has picked up within the past ten years, thanks to national and international hotel chains establishing themselves in this corridor. People from all parts of Mexico have emigrated to the area in the hope of better opportunity, which has resulted in steady growth in the neighborhoods in the northwest and west of Cabo San Lucas.
Cabo San Lucas has become an important vacation and spa destination, with a great variety of sites of interest, and timeshares that have been built on the coast between San Lucas and San José del Cabo. The distinctive El Arco de Cabo San Lucas is a local landmark. Cabo San Lucas has the largest marlin tournament in the world. In the winter, pods of whales can be observed in the ocean. They bear their calves in the warm waters there.
Cabo San Lucas and San José del Cabo are served by Los Cabos International Airport. The town is also a popular port of call for many cruise ships. Cabo San Lucas has a small international airfield, which handles air traffic for general aviation flights and air taxi service.
In 1990 rock musician Sammy Hagar of Van Halen opened a nightclub and restaurant, the Cabo Wabo Cantina, with the three other members of Van Halen. In the mid-nineties he bought out the other owners, his band-mates, and assumed complete ownership of the club. He is known to play live at the club at least once a year with his band, The Wabos on his birthday, October 13, and shows often include many famous guests and friends from the music industry. Other clubs in Cabo include Pink Kitty Nightclub, Mandala, El Squid Roe, No Worry's Bar & Grill, Gigglin Marlin, NoWhere Bar, Tiki Bar, The Usual Suspects and The Jungle Bar. Tourists may also take horserides through the desert and parasail on the beach.
The English language newspaper for Cabo San Lucas is the Gringo Gazette, a bi-weekly newspaper, with news on tourist activities in Cabo San Lucas, San Jose, Todos Santos, La Paz and the East Cape Baja.[3]
Also known as the corredor del oro (Golden Corridor), the Corridor is where most tourists go and newcomers settled down in retirement homes.
Cabo San Lucas's raucous party atmosphere and San José’s laid-back colonial style are bridged by a golf course-and resort-studded Tourist Corridor that stretches between the twin towns in 20 miles of pristine beaches and craggy coves. Exclusive hotels and gated residential communities attracting a wide clientele of rich and famous are found here. Many of these properties have become havens to Hollywood stars, Fortune 500 C.E.O.s and even the U.S. President during the 2002 Asia-Pacific Economic Conference (APEC). High-end resorts in the Corridor include the One and Only Palmilla, Esperanza and Las Ventanas.
Now the majority of inhabitants (70-80%) in the community originate from the United States.
| Climate data for Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur | |||||||||||||
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| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Average high °C (°F) | 24 (76) |
23 (74) |
25 (77) |
27 (81) |
30 (86) |
32 (89) |
34 (94) |
36 (96) |
35 (95) |
32 (90) |
28 (83) |
25 (77) |
29.4 (84.8) |
| Average low °C (°F) | 12 (54) |
13 (55) |
13 (56) |
14 (58) |
16 (61) |
19 (66) |
23 (73) |
24 (75) |
24 (75) |
20 (68) |
17 (63) |
14 (58) |
17.5 (63.5) |
| Precipitation mm (inches) | 5 (0.2) |
28 (1.1) |
0 (0.0) |
0 (0.0) |
0 (0.0) |
5 (0.2) |
10 (0.4) |
30 (1.2) |
36 (1.4) |
15 (0.6) |
13 (0.5) |
28 (1.1) |
170 (6.7) |
| % humidity | 68 | 65 | 62 | 60 | 61 | 65 | 68 | 70 | 69 | 69 | 71 | 67 | 66.3 |
| Source: Weatherbase [4] | |||||||||||||
Cabo San Lucas has a tropical arid climate.
During summer Cabo San Lucas is cooler than San José del Cabo by about 3°F to 5°F. Sometimes during the summer, when winds blow from the Pacific Ocean instead of the Gulf of California, the differences in temperatures between San José del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas are higher.
Cabo San Lucas is less rainy than San José del Cabo although hurricanes can bring heavy rain for long periods but because of the position of the city and orography the local thunder storms of the summer do not get near enough to bring rain to the town.
Average rain in the year: 9.63 inches or 244.7mm
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