The free municipality of Candelaria gets its name from the Rió Candelaria, which runs through the municipality and is an essential factor in the life of the region. This municipality is found in the southeast of the State of Campeche. It is bordered to the north by the municipality of Escárcega, to the south with the Republic of Guatemala and the state of Tabasco, to the east with the municipality of Calakmul and the west with the municipality of Carmen.
As a consequence of the over exploitation of the palo de tinte, the seekers of this premium material started to go further to the south of the Isla del Carmen in search of this resource during the porfirista epoch.. Palo de tinte was the first natural resource used in the region.
In the 1940s, the region of Candelaria developed economically, socially, and politically. The first services appeared, and new modes of resource exploitation were developed— for example, lizard and crocodile hunting for its skin.
The process of land appropriation for the cooperative of Candelaria ended December 6, 1948, when the mixed agricultural commission of the state made the act of possession and defined the cooperative. This appropriation of Candelaria was one of the principal factors that ended the second project of colonization in the county, in an effort to alleviate the problems of overpopulation of some states such as Durango, Michoacán, Tlaxcala y Jalisco, six new centers of cooperative population were established.
