Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Acapulco |
AcapulcoNoun1. A port and fashionable resort city on southern Mexico's Pacific coast; known for beaches and water sports (including cliff diving). Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "Acapulco" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1776. (references) |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Acapulco, also known as Acapulco de Juárez, is a city and major sea port in the state of Guerrero on the Pacific coast of Mexico, 190 miles S.S.W. of Mexico City, at 16.85°N, 99.92°W. Acapulco is located on a deep, semicircular bay, almost land-locked, easy of access, and with so secure an anchorage that vessels can safely lie alongside the rocks that fringe the shore. It is the best harbour on the Pacific coast of Mexico, and it is a port of call for shipping lines running between Panama and San Francisco, California. In 2003 the estimated population was 638,000 people.
The town is built on a narrow strip of low land, scarcely half a mile wide, between the shore line and the lofty mountains that encircle the bay. There is great natural beauty in the surroundings, but the mountains render the town difficult of access from the interior, and give it an exceptionally hot and unhealthy climate. The effort to admit the cooling sea breezes by cutting through the mountains a passage called the Abra de San Nicolas had some beneficial effect.
History
Acapulco has been well known as a traveler's crossroads for at least a millennium. Its name is Nahuatl, meaning "plane of dense reeds."The earliest local remains, stone metates and pottery utensils, were left in the 3rd millennium BC. Much later, sophisticated artisans fashioned curvaceous female figurines. Some hypothesize that there was early Polynesian or Asian influences in Pacific Mexico as early as 1500 years before the arrival Christopher Columbus.
Other artifacts resemble those found in highland Mexico. Although influenced by Tarascan, Mixtec, Zapotec, and Aztec civilizations, sometimes paying tribute to them and frequented by their traders, Acapulco never came under their direct control, but instead remained subject to local caciques until the Spanish conquest.
After conquering the Aztecs, Hernan Fernando Cortes sent expeditions south to build ships and find a route to China. The first explorers sailed from Zacatula, near present-day Lazaro Cardenas on the coast 250 miles north-west of Acapulco. By a royal decree dated April 25, 1528, "Acapulco and her land ... where the ships of the south will be built...." passed directly into the hands of the Spanish Crown. Voyages of discovery set sail from Acapulco for Peru, the Sea of Cortez, and to Asia. None returned across the Pacific, however, until Father Andres de Urdaneta discovered the northern Pacific tradewinds, which propelled him and his ship, loaded with Chinese treasure, to Acapulco in 1565.
For more than 200 years after that, a special yearly trading ship, known to the English as the "Manila Galleon," set sail from Acapulco for the Manila and the Orient. Its return started an annual merchant fair in Acapulco where traders bargained for the Galleon's cargo of silks, porcelain, ivory, and lacquerware.
Acapulco's yearly treasure soon attracted marauders, too. In 1579, Francis Drake attacked but failed to capture the Galleon, but in 1587, off Cabo San Lucas, Thomas Cavendish seized the Santa Anna. The cash alone, 1.2 million gold pesos, severely depressed the London gold market.
After a Dutch fleet invaded Acapulco in 1615, the Spanish rebuilt their fort, which they christened Fort San Diego in 1617. Destroyed by an earthquake in 1776, the fort was rebuilt by 1783. Mexico's War of Independence (1820-21) stopped the Manila Galleon forever, sending Acapulco into a century-long slumber.
By the early 20th century, the town was chosen as the terminus for two railway lines seeking a Pacific port -- the Interoceanic and the Mexican Central. The port city grew greatly in the 20th century.
The town suffered considerably from earthquakes in July and August 1909.
There are exports of hides, cedar, and fruit, and the adjacent district of Tabares produces cotton, tobacco, cacao, sugarcane, Indian corn, beans, and coffee.
modified after text from 1911 public domain encyclopedia
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Acapulco."
| The following table is compiled from various sources, across various languages. When English abbreviations or acronyms come from a non-English source, this is noted. | |||
| Entry | Source | Expression | Field |
| ACA | English | Acapulco | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |||
Synonym: AcapulcoSynonym: Acapulco de Juarez (n). (additional references) |
Crosswords: Acapulco |
| English words defined with "Acapulco": Pintos. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Let's go to Acapulco. (The Player; writing credit: Michael Tolkin) | |
Movie/TV Titles | El Rey de Acapulco (1972) Acapulco Uncensored (1968) Un Latin lover en Acapulco (1968) 48 Stunden bis Acapulco (1967) Acapulco a go-go (1967) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
| ||
Theater & Movies | |||
Music |
| ||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Ship's shore patrol of Sailors and Marines, at Acapulco, Mexico, circa 1913. Credit: NAVY. |  | Presidential candidate Adolfo Ruiz Cortines, flanked by supporters, standing on a banner-covered hotel balcony during a campaign rally, Acapulco, Mexico. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Acapulco Gold rolling papers by Amorphia, the cannabis co-op / produced by Amorphia, a non-profit organization using all its proceeds to legalize marijuana. Credit: Library of Congress. | ||
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
 |  |
| "Acapulco Bay" by Toño Pérez Commentary: "Acapulco Bay." | "Palms01" by A. Carlos Herrera Commentary: "April 23rd, 2003. Acapulco, Mexico." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Economic History | Mexico | Other major cities--Guadalajara, Monterrey, Puebla, Ciudad Juarez, Tijuana, Acapulco, Merida, Leon, Veracruz. (references) |
Human Rights | Mexico | There were no developments in the investigation into the presumed suicide of Jose Manuel Urbina, who was found drowned in a Durango state security facility in June 2000. According to the Guerrero State Human Rights Commission, in 1999 Angel Guillermo Martinez Gonzalez and his wife, Virginia Montes Gonzalez, were arrested and imprisoned in connection with a 1999 attack on Acapulco City councilor-elect Marco Antonio Lopez Garcia and his family. (references) |
Political Economy | MEXICO | In Mexico City and nearby industrial areas, Acapulco, southeast Veracruz state's refining and petrochemical zone, and most border areas, the daily minimum wage has been 37.90 pesos ($4.10 in late September 2000). However, daily minimum wage earners actually are paid 43.21 pesos, due to a 14 percent supplemental fiscal subsidy (tax credit to employers). (references) |
Travel | Mexico | This includes Puerto Vallarta, Acapulco and other beach resorts, as well as the desert Northeast and border zone. (references) |
Worker Rights | Mexico | In Acapulco, Mexico City, and nearby industrial areas, southeast Veracruz state's refining and petrochemical zone, and most border areas, the minimum daily wage was set at $4.48 (40.35 pesos). (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Acapulco" is generally used as a noun (proper) -- approximately 95.83% of the time. "Acapulco" is used about 24 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (proper) | 95.83% | 23 | 72,767 |
| Noun (singular) | 4.17% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 24 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "Acapulco": Acapulco de Juarez ♦ Acapulco gold. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "Acapulco"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Russian | акапулько (aculpulco). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Misspellings | |
"Acapulco" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Casapalca. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-a-c-c-l-o-p-u" | |
-2 letters: calpac, cloaca, copula, cupola. | |
-3 letters: cacao, coala, copal, culpa. | |
-4 letters: caca, calo, capo, caul, clap, clop, coal, coca, cola, coup, loca, loup, opal, paca, pula. | |
-5 letters: aal, ala, alp, cap, col, cop, cup, lac, lap, lop, oca, pac, pal, pol, pul, upo. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-a-c-c-l-o-p-u" | |
+3 letters: capaciously. | |
+4 letters: occupational, ultracompact. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Images: Digital Art | 9. Quotations: Non-fiction 10. Usage Frequency 11. Expressions 12. Expressions: Internet | 13. Translations: Modern 14. Abbreviations 15. Acronyms 16. Derivations | 17. Anagrams 18. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
