Acapulco: "The Place of Reeds":
That's what the word Acapulco means (from Nahuatl: acame, reeds, pul, thick and co (location), although some people say it means "in the place where the reeds were destroyed", based on a legend about a prince called Acatl (reed) who fell in love with Princess Quiahuith (rain).

Unable to consummate his love, Prince Acatl dissolved in his own tears and became a mud pond in which reeds began to grow. Princess Quiahuitl by then had changed into an immense vagrant cloud which floated over the bay one afternoon.Seeing her beloved, she too condensed into water and poured down, to flatten the reeds and die in the mud pond, alongside Prince Acatl.

The history of Acapulco:
An Indian tribe "Tlahuicas" settled in the Acapulco bay area 2000 years ago.One thousand years later in the time of the Tlataoni Ahuizotl, the Aztecs conquered the territory. In 1530, Cortez arrived. He established a shipbuilding center and shortly afterwards, Acapulco became an important commercial center on the trade route between the Phillipines and Spain. Several expeditions set sail from this port in the 16th century. In 1532, Francisco de Mendoza led an expedition to the South Pacific. In 1539 Francisco de Ulloa went on an expedition hoping to find the mythical cities of Cibola and Quivira; and in 1540, Domingo del Castillo's expedition chartered the first map of Mexico's west coast. In 1565, Friar Andres de Urdaneta, sailing from the Philippines, dropped anchor in Acapulco Bay. He became the first man to sail the route that would be plied by the famous Nao de China (or galleon from the Phillippines) for more than 200 years. The docking of this merchant ship in Acapulco was always the occasion for a trade fair ("the world's most famous" to quote the words of Baron de Humboldt), where merchandise from the Orient was exchanged for products from Spain, Mexico and Peru. Pirates began to pick up the scent of the riches and repeatedly attacked the Bay. Pirates like Sir Francis Drake, who hid his ships in the quiet bay of Puerto Marques, plundered the vessels that were laden with treasures. The fort of San Diego was built by Adrian Boot in 1776 to ward off attackers. Despite its commercial importance, the state was poor. There were only three buildings to speak of: the fort, the hospital and the Saint Joseph Chapel; the rest were huts. In 1592, Viceroy De Velasco converted the route from Mexico City to Acapulco into a coach road from just a trail.

In 1599, King Charles II of Spain upgraded Acapulco to the status of City. In 1811, during the war of independence, Jose Maria Morelos attempted to seize the Fort of San Diego without success. Two years later he was successful, though he was soon ousted by the Spanish army. The fort remained as the last vice-regal post on the Pacific, until it was forced to surrender to the Independence Liberation Government on October 15, 1821.

In 1854 under the Ayutla Plan, Ignacio Comonfort, who was the customs administrator in Acapulco, was appointed govenor of the port and provisional chief of the armed forces.

In his new office, he offered the leadership of the liberation Army to Juan Alvarez, who accepted on March 13th of the same year. A few weeks later, on April 20th, President Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, commanded forces of some five thousand men, made a surprise attack on the Fort of San Diego, but the Republicans under Comonfort, crushed them.

During the French intervention, Acapulco was considered a strategic point. The invading troops bombarded the port in January 1863. The navy stayed there for only three days. In June, they seized Acapulco again and remained until the end of 1864, when Vicente Jimenez and Diego Alvarez defeated the Imperalists at El Zapotal. In 1865, Acapulco was besieged by the French again, but the Republicans resisted and fought them off.

On March 18, 1911, the Political and Social Plan was signed in the hills of Guerrero, and three months later the revolutionary Romulo G. Figueroa, at the head of the Morelos Column, took the port of Acapulco.

The first real road from the capital opened in 1927. The trip took more than a week then but enough hearty travellers braved it to prompt the construction of the first hotel in 1934. From there on, Acapulco's popularity began to grow. With the construction of the airport in 1928, direct international flights from major US cities folloved and this brought on the beginning of Acapulco's glamourous jet-set whirl to fame.