Progreso’s maritime pier, the longest in the world, turned 80 last weekend.
The original section of the pier has now survived eight decades’ worth of hurricanes thanks to its steel-and-cement structure built by the Danish company Christiani & Nielsen.
This original section stretches 2 kilometers into the ocean and is held up of a series of 146 arches.
Work on the pier began in 1936 and was finished in 1941. Since that time, several renovation and expansion projects have made the dock the longest in the world.
The pier now pierces into the Gulf of Mexico for a distance of 6.5 km and resembles a bridge to some far-off land.
It has long been a local urban legend that the pier was intended to be a bridge connecting Yucatán with the Florida Keys or Cuba.
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In reality, the length of the pier is designed to allow large ships to dock, as the waters surrounding the Yucatán peninsula are very shallow.
Since its completion, Progreso’s pier has become one of the most important in all of southern Mexico. A great many imports and exports are shipped through it every day.
Over the past decade, the pier has become an increasingly popular port for cruise ships.
While tourists arriving on these cruise ships stay in Progreso to enjoy the beach and boardwalk, others take the opportunity to venture off to one of Yucatán’s many archaeological sites, such as Chichén Itzá, Uxmal, or Dziblichalútn.
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