Tubac is a census-designated place (CDP) in Santa Cruz County,
Arizona, United States. The population was 1,191 at the 2010 census. The place
name "Tubac" is an English borrowing from a Hispanicized form of the
O'odham name, which translates into English as "rotten". The original
O'odham name is written
Cuwak.
The first syllable is accented. When first taken into Spanish speech, it was
spelled
Tubaca. Finally over
time the last "a" was dropped. Tubac is situated on the Santa Cruz
River.
