The meteor that killed the dinosaurs landed in what is now the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. The impact created the Chicxulub crater, a large meteorite crater more than 180 km (110 miles) in diameter, partly on land and partly underwater off the coast of the peninsula

. The asteroid that caused the crater was about 10 to 15 kilometers (6 to 9 miles) wide and struck the Earth roughly 66 million years ago, triggering the mass extinction event that wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs and many other species

. The crater is centered near coordinates 21°24′N 89°31′W, offshore but named after the nearby town of Chicxulub Pueblo on the Yucatán Peninsula

. This impact is widely accepted as the primary cause of the Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) extinction event, which led to the extinction of about 75% of Earth's species at that time