Ixtapa is a beach resort in the municipality of Zihuatanejo de Azueta, in the Mexican state of Guerrero. It is located 5 km to the northwest of the municipal seat, Zihuatanejo, and some 240 km northwest of Acapulco.
In the 2005 INEGI Census, the population of Ixtapa was 6,406.
Creation of Ixtapa
Ixtapa is a government-planned tourist resort that was begun in the early 1970s and constructed on what was once a coconut plantation and mangrove estuary.
In 1968, the Bank of Mexico created a special fund for the creation of new tourist destinations on the country’s coastlines. The first two such destinations were Cancún, in the state of Quintana Roo, and Ixtapa, next to the town of Zihuatanejo. The development of Ixtapa was supported by a loan from the World Bank.
The master plan for Ixtapa was developed by architects Enrique and Agustín Landa Verdugo, who also participated in the choice of the site. Their project defined the tourist destination’s street layout and zoning. The project is organized in super-blocks with irregular shapes, with the high-speed streets separating these blocks, and cul-de-sacs within them. A couple of architects were selected to build this city, some are still lresidents of this town. Architects like Miguel Ángel Rojas and Concepción Rivera live and work in this town. The famous Mexican Telenovela ‘Marimar’ was filmed here in 1994.