The United Mexican States, or simply Mexico, is a country located in North America, bounded on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the North Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of Mexico. The United Mexican States conform a constitutional republican federation of thirty-one states and a federal district, Mexico City, one of the most populous cities on Earth.
Covering almost 2 million square kilometers, Mexico is the 5th largest country in the Americas by total area and 14th largest in the world. With a population of about 108 million, it is the 11th most populous country and the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world.
As the only Latin American member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) since 1994, Mexico is firmly established as an upper middle-income country. Federal elections held in July 2000 marked the first time since 1929 that an opposition party defeated the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional: PRI) at the national presidential race, culminating a process of political alternation that had begun at the local level since the 1980s.
After the independence of the vice-royalty of New Spain it was decided that the country was to be named after its capital city, whose original name of foundation was Mexico-Tenochtitlan, in reference to the name of the Nahua Aztec tribe, the Mexica. The Nahuatl word Mexiko or Mexihko is composed of the root Mexi and the suffix -co that means place or city. The origin of the name of the tribe is rather obscure. Some argue that it derives from the Nahuatl word Mexitl a secret name for the god of war and patron of the Mexica, Huitzilopochtli, in which case Mexico means "place where Mexitl lives". Another hypothesis suggests that it derives from the words metztli ("moon"), xictli ("navel", "center" or "son"), and the suffix -co ("place"), thus it means "Place at the center of the moon" or "Place at the center of the Lake Moon", in reference to Lake Texcoco at the middle of which Mexico City was built.
History of Mexico
For almost three thousand years, Mesoamerica was the site of several advanced Amerindian civilizations such as the Olmec, the Maya and the Aztecs. In 1519, the native civilizations of what now is known as Mexico were invaded by Spain; this was one of the most important conquest campaigns in America. Two years later in 1521, the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan was conquered by an alliance between Spanish and Tlaxcaltecs, the main enemies of the Aztecs, setting up a three-century colonial rule in Mexico. The viceroyalty of New Spain became the first and largest provider of resources for the Spanish Empire, and the most populated of all Spanish colonies.
On September 16, 1810, independence from Spain was declared by Miguel Hidalgo in the small town of Dolores, causing a long war that eventually led to recognized independence in 1821 and the creation of an ephemeral First Mexican Empire with Agustín de Iturbide as first and only emperor, deposed in 1823 by the republican forces. In 1824, a republican constitution was drafted creating the United Mexican States with Guadalupe Victoria as its first President. The first four decades of independent Mexico were marked by a constant strife between federalists (those who supported the federal form of government stipulated in the 1824 constitution) and centralists (who proposed a hierarchical form of government in which all local authorities were appointed and subject to a central authority). General Antonio López de Santa Anna was a strong influence in Mexican politics, a centralist and a two-time dictator. In 1836, he approved the Siete Leyes, a radical amendment to the constitution that institutionalized the centralized form of government, after which Texas declared independence from Mexico, obtained in 1836. The annexation of Texas by the United States created a border dispute that would cause the Mexican-American War. This war resulted in the defeat of Mexico and as a result of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), Mexico lost one third of its surface area to the United States.
Dissatisfaction with Santa Anna's return to power, and his unconstitutional rule, led to the liberal Revolution of Ayutla, which initiated an era of liberal reforms, known as La Reforma, after which a new constitution was drafted that reestablished federalism as the form of government and first introduced freedom of religion. In the 1860s the country again underwent a military occupation, this time by France, which established the Habsburg Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian of Austria on the Mexican throne as Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico with support from the Catholic clergy and the conservative Mexicans. This Second Mexican Empire was victorious for only a few years, when the previous president of the Republic, the Zapotec Indian Benito Juárez, managed to restore the republic in 1867.
Porfirio Díaz, a republican general during the French intervention, ruled Mexico from 1876-1880 and then from 1880-1911 in five consecutive reelections. The period of his rule is known as the Porfiriato, which was characterized by remarkable economic achievements, investments in art and sciences, but also of huge economic inequality and political repression. An obvious and preposterous electoral fraud that led to his fifth reelection sparked the Mexican Revolution of 1910, initially led by Francisco I. Madero. Díaz resigned in 1911 and Madero was elected president but overthrown and murdered in a coup d'état in 1913 led by a conservative general named Victoriano Huerta after a secret council held with the American ambassador Henry Lane Wilson. This re-ignited the civil war, with participants such as Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata who formed their own forces. A third force, the constitutional army led by Venustiano Carranza, managed to bring an end to the war, and radically amended the 1857 Constitution to include many of the social premises and demands of the revolutionaries into what was eventually called the 1917 Constitution. Carranza was killed in 1920 and succeeded by Álvaro Obregón, who in turn was succeeded by Plutarco Elías Calles. Obregón was reelected in 1928 but assassinated before he could assume power. Shortly after, Calles founded the National Revolutionary Party (PNR), later renamed the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) who became the most influential party during the next 70 years.
During the next four decades, Mexico experienced substantial economic growth that historians call "El Milagro Mexicano", the Mexican Miracle. The assumption of mineral rights by the government, and the subsequent nationalization of the oil industry into PEMEX during the presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas del Río (1938) was a popular move, but sparked a diplomatic crisis with those countries whose citizens had lost businesses expropriated by the Cárdenas government.
Although the economy continued to flourish, social inequality remained a factor of discontent. Moreover, the PRI rule became increasingly authoritarian and at times oppressive, an example being the Tlatelolco Massacre of 1968, which by according to government officials claimed the life of around 30 protesters, even though many reputable international accounts reported that around 250 protesters were killed by security forces in a clash at the neighborhood. In the 1970s there was extreme dissatisfaction with the administration of Luis Echeverría which took missteps in both the national and international arenas. Nonetheless, it was in this decade that the first substantial changes to electoral law were made, which initiated a movement of democratization of a system that had become electorally authoritarian. While the prices of oil were at historically high records and interest rates were low, Mexico made impressive investments in the state-owned oil company, with the intention of revitalizing the economy, but overborrowing and mismanagement of oil revenues led to inflation and exacerbated the crisis of 1982. That year, oil prices plunged, interest rates soared, and the government defaulted on its debt. In an attempt to stabilize the current account balance, and given the reluctance of international lenders to return to Mexico given the previous default, president de la Madrid resorted to currency devaluations which in turn sparked inflation.
Geography of Mexico
Mexico is situated in the mid-latitudes of the Americas. Its territory comprises much of southern North America, or also within Middle America. Physiographically, the lands east of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec including the Yucatán Peninsula (which together comprise around 12% of the country's area) lie within the region of Central America; geologically, the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt delimits the region on the north. Geopolitically, however, Mexico is not commonly considered a Central American country.
Mexico's total area is 1,972,550 km², including approximately 6,000 km² of islands in the Pacific Ocean (including the remote Guadalupe Island and the Islas Revillagigedo), Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea, and Gulf of California. On its north, Mexico shares a 3,141 km border with the United States. The meandering Río Bravo del Norte (known as the Rio Grande in the United States) defines the border from Ciudad Juárez east to the Gulf of Mexico. A series of natural and artificial markers delineate the United States-Mexican border west from Ciudad Juárez to the Pacific Ocean. On its south, Mexico shares an 871 km border with Guatemala and a 251 km border with Belize.
Topography
The Mexican territory is crossed from north to south by two mountain ranges known as Sierra Madre Oriental and Sierra Madre Occidental, which are the extension of the Rocky Mountains from northern North America. From east to west at the center, the country is crossed by the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt also known as the Sierra Nevada. A fourth mountain range, the Sierra Madre del Sur, runs from Michoacán to Oaxaca. As such, the majority of the Mexican central and northern territories are located at high altitudes, and the highest elevations are found at the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt: Pico de Orizaba (5,700 m), Popocatépetl (5,462 m) and Iztaccíhuatl (5,286 m) and the Nevado de Toluca (4,577 m). Three major urban agglomerations are located in the valleys between these four elevations: Toluca, Greater Mexico City and Puebla.
Climate
The Tropic of Cancer effectively divides the country into temperate and tropical zones. Land north of the twenty-fourth parallel experiences cooler temperatures during the winter months. South of the twenty-fourth parallel, temperatures are fairly constant year round and vary solely as a function of elevation.
Areas south of the twentieth-fourth parallel with elevations up to 1,000 meters (the southern parts of both coastal plains as well as the Yucatán Peninsula), have a yearly median temperature between 24°C and 28°C. Temperatures here remain high throughout the year, with only a 5°C difference between winter and summer median temperatures. Although low-lying areas north of the twentieth-fourth parallel are hot and humid during the summer, they generally have lower yearly temperature averages (from 20°C to 24°C) because of more moderate conditions during the winter.
Demographics of Mexico
With a population of 103 million (2005 Census), Mexico is the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world.
Languages of Mexico
There is no de jure official language at the federal level in Mexico. Spanish, however, is used as a de facto official language and is spoken by 97% of the population. The Law of Linguistic Rights, however, grants all 62 indigenous languages spoken in Mexico (regardless of the number of speakers) the same validity as Spanish in all territories in which they are spoken, and indigenous peoples are entitled to request some public services and documents in their languages.[31] Along with Spanish, the law has granted them the status of "national languages". The Mexican government has promoted and established bilingual primary and secondary education in some indigenous rural communities. Approximately 6% of the population speaks an indigenous language and 3% do not speak Spanish. Nahuatl is spoken by 1.5 million and Yucatec Maya by 800,000. Some of the national languages are in danger of extinction; Lacandon is spoken by fewer than a hundred people.
English is widely used in business, at the border cities, as well as by the one million American citizens that live in Mexico, mostly retirees in small towns in Baja California, Guanajuato and Chiapas. Other European languages spoken by sizable communities Mexico are Venetian, Plautdietsch, German, French and Romani.
Religion
Unlike some other Latin American countries, Mexico has no official religion, and the Constitution of 1917 and the anti-clerical laws marked a sharp separation between Church and State. The Mexican constitution does not require (not even as a formal convention) the president to profess Catholicism (and in fact, he was usually expected not to manifest his beliefs publicly) and the government does not provide any financial contribution to the Church and the latter does not participate in public education. Until recently, priests did not have the right to vote, and even now, they cannot be elected for public office.
Nonetheless, the Mexican population is predominantly Roman Catholic (89%[32]); in absolute terms, after Brazil, Mexico has the second largest population of Catholics in the world. About 6% of the population is Protestant, of which Penctecostals and Charismatics (called Neo-Pentecostals in the census), are the largest group. Geographically, northern and central Mexico are mostly Catholic (where Protestants are usually less than 3% of the total population) whereas at the south-east, while still predominantly Catholic a little more than 15% of the population is either Protestant or non religious. Weekly church attendance is 46% of the Mexican population.
Official data estimates that Islam in Mexico accounts for about 318,608 people, representing 0.3 percent of the total population.
Culture of Mexico
Mexican culture is the result of a historical process of violent and pacific exchange or ideas, the assimilation of exogenous cultural elements and the reinterpretations of the endogenous cultural elements. Like it was the case in most Latin American countries, when Mexico became an independent nation, it had to slowly create a national identity, being an ethnically diverse country in which, for the most part, the only connecting element amongst the newly independent inhabitants was catholicism.
The Porfirian era (second quarter of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth century) was marked by economic progress and peace which finally allowed, after four decades of civil unrest and wars with foreign nations, for the development of the arts and philosophy, which was promoted by President Díaz himself. Since that time, though accentuated during the Mexican Revolution, cultural identity had its foundation in the mestizaje, of which the indigenous (i.e. Amerindian) element was the core. In light of the various ethnicities that formed the Mexican people, José Vasconcelos in his publication La Raza Cósmica (1925) defined Mexico to be the melting pot of all races (thus extending the definition of the Mestizo) not only biologically but culturally as well. This exalting of mestizaje was a revolutionary idea that sharply contrasted the idea of a superior pure race prevalent in Europe at the time.
Post-revolutionary art in Mexico had its expression in the works of renowned artists such as Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, Rufino Tamayo and David Alfaro Siqueiros, amongst others. Diego Rivera is the most well-known figure of Mexican muralism, who painted the Man at the Crossroads in Rockefeller Center. Some of his murals are also displayed at the Mexican National Palace and the Palace of Fine Arts. Academic music composers of Mexico include Manuel M. Ponce, Mario Lavista, Silvestre Revueltas and Juventino Rosas, many of whom incorporated traditional elements into their music. Finally, Carlos Fuentes, Juan Rulfo, Elena Poniatowska José Emilio Pacheco, and the Nobel Prize winner Octavio Paz, are some of the greatest exponents of the Mexican literature.
Mexican singers are famous in all Latin America and Spain. Mexico is often referred to as the "capital of Spanish-speaking entertainment", due to the fact that any Latin or Spanish singer wanting to become an international success in the region, they must seek to enter first to the Mexican music industry.
Sports
Mexico hosted the XIX Olympic Games in 1968, making it the only Latin American country that has ever done it. The country has also organized 2 times the FIFA World Cup, both in 1970 and 1986.
The national sport of Mexico is Charreria. Bullfighting is also a popular sport in the country. Almost all large cities have bullrings. La Monumental in Mexico City, has the largest bullring in the world, which seats 55,000 people.
The favorite sport, however, is football, with two National First Divisions Leagues. Baseball, is also popular, especially in the Gulf of Mexico and the northern states.. The season runs from March to July with playoffs held in August. The Mexican professional league is named the Liga Mexicana de Beisbol. But the most important baseball league in Mexico is the Liga Mexicana del Pacífico. The States of Sinaloa, Sonora and Baja California have this league, with the highest professional level. The players of this league play in the MLB in The USA, Japan and Korea. This league participes in the "Mini World Series" with teams from Venezuela, Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic in the "Caribbean Series"
The most important professional basketball league is the Liga Nacional de Baloncesto Profesional and covers the whole Mexican territory, where the Soles de Mexicali are the current champions. In 2007 three Mexican teams will be competing in the American Basketball Association. In the northwestern states is the CIBACOPA Competition, with professional basketball players from Mexico and the American Universities and some teams from the American NBA.
American football is played at the major universities like ITESM (Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey), UANL (Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León), UDLA (University of the Americas), and UNAM. The college league in Mexico is called ONEFA. There is also a strong following of the NFL in Mexico with the Steelers, Cowboys, Dolphins and Raiders being the most popular teams. Rugby is played at the amateur level throughout the country with the majority of clubs in Mexico City and others in Monterrey, Guadalajara, Celaya, Guanajuato and Oaxaca.
Professional wrestling (or Lucha libre in Spanish) is a major crowd draw with national promotions such as AAA, LLL, CMLL and others.
Sport fishing, is popular in Baja California and the big Pacific coast resorts, while freshwater bass fishing is growing in popularity too. The gentler arts of diving and snorkeling are big around the Caribbean, with famous dive sites at Cozumel and on the reefs further south. The Pacific coast is becoming something of a center for surfing, with few facilities as yet; all these sports attract tourists to Mexico.
Mexican cuisine
Mostly known internationally for its tacos, fajitas, quesadillas and enchiladas, Mexican cuisine is extremely diverse. Regional dishes include mole poblano, chiles en nogada and chalupas from Puebla; cabrito and machaca from Monterrey, cochinita pibil from Yucatán, as well as barbacoa, chilaquiles, milanesas, and many other dishes.
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