Portal:Mexico

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Introduction

Mexico (Spanish: México [ˈmexiko] (listen); Nahuatl languages: Mēxihco), officially the United Mexican States (Spanish: Estados Unidos Mexicanos, listen (help·info)), is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and to the east by the Gulf of Mexico. Covering almost 2,000,000 square kilometres (770,000 sq mi), the nation is the fifth largest country in the Americas by total area and the 13th largest independent state in the world. With an estimated population of over 120 million people, the country is the eleventh most populous state and the most populous Spanish-speaking state in the world, while being the second most populous nation in Latin America after Brazil. Mexico is a federation comprising 31 states and Mexico City, a special federal entity that is also the capital city and its most populous city. Other metropolises in the state include Guadalajara, Monterrey, Puebla, Toluca, León and Tijuana.

Pre-Columbian Mexico dates to about 8000 BC and is identified as one of five cradles of civilization and was home to many advanced Mesoamerican civilizations such as the Olmec, Toltec, Teotihuacan, Zapotec, Maya, and Aztec before first contact with Europeans. In 1521, the Spanish Empire conquered and colonized the territory from its politically powerful base in Mexico-Tenochtitlan (part of Mexico City), which was administered as the viceroyalty of New Spain. Three centuries later, the territory became a nation state following its recognition in 1821 after the colony's Mexican War of Independence. The post-independence period was tumultuous, characterized by economic inequality and many contrasting political changes. The Mexican–American War (1846–1848) led to a territorial cession of the extant northern territories to the United States. The Pastry War, the Franco-Mexican War, a civil war, two empires, and the Porfiriato occurred in the 19th century. The Porfiriato was ended by the start of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, which culminated with the promulgation of the 1917 Constitution and the emergence of the country's current political system as a federal, democratic republic.

Selected general articles

Water supply and sanitation in Mexico is characterized by achievements and challenges. Among the achievements is a significant increase in access to piped water supply in urban areas (88% to 93%) as well as in rural areas (50% to 74%) between 1990 and 2010. Additionally, a strong nationwide increase in access to improved sanitation (64% to 85%) was observed in the same period. Other achievements include the existence of a functioning national system to finance water and sanitation infrastructure with a National Water Commission as its apex institution; and the existence of a few well-performing utilities such as Aguas y Drenaje de Monterrey.

The challenges include water scarcity in the northern and central parts of the country; inadequate water service quality (drinking water quality; 55% of Mexicans receiving water only intermittently according to results of the 2000 census); poor technical and commercial efficiency of most utilities (with an average level of non-revenue water of 51% in 2003); an insufficient share of wastewater receiving treatment (36% in 2006); and still inadequate access in rural areas. In addition to on-going investments to expand access, the government has embarked on a large investment program to improve wastewater treatment. Read more...
The Chamber of Deputies (Spanish: Cámara de Diputados) is the lower house of the Congress of the Union, the bicameral legislature of Mexico. The other chamber is the Senate. The structure and responsibilities of both chambers of Congress are defined in Articles 50 to 70 of the current constitution. Read more...
Meeting of the cabinet of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto

The cabinet of Mexico is the Executive Cabinet (Spanish: Gabinete Legal) and is a part of the executive branch of the Mexican government. It consists of nineteen Secretaries of State, the head of the federal executive legal office and the Attorney General.

In addition to the legal Executive Cabinet there are other Cabinet-level administration offices that report directly to the President of the Republic (Gabinete Ampliado). Officials from the legal and extended Cabinet (Gabinete Legal y Ampliado) are subordinate to the President. Read more...
Mexico has experienced many changes in territorial organization during its history as an independent state. The territorial boundaries of Mexico were affected by presidential and imperial decrees. One such decree was the Law of Bases for the Convocation of the Constituent Congress to the Constitutive Act of the Mexican Federation, which determined the national land area as the result of integration of the jurisdictions that corresponded to New Spain, the Captaincy General of Yucatán, the Captaincy General of Guatemala and the autonomous Kingdoms of East and West. The decree resulted in the independence from Spain. Read more...
Mexicans (Spanish: mexicanos) are the people of the United Mexican States, a multiethnic country in North America. Mexicans can also be those who identify with the Mexican cultural or national identity.

The Mexica founded Mexico-Tenochtitlan in 1325 as an altepetl (city-state) located on an island in Lake Texcoco, in the Valley of Mexico. It became the capital of the expanding Mexica Empire in the 15th century, until captured by the Spanish in 1521. At its peak, it was the largest city in the Pre-Columbian Americas. It subsequently became a cabecera of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. Today the ruins of Tenochtitlan are located in the central part of Mexico City. Read more...
Agave plants and a ruined hacienda house in Jalisco

Agriculture in Mexico has been an important sector of the country’s economy historically and politically even though it now accounts for a very small percentage of Mexico’s GDP. Mexico is one of the cradles of agriculture with the Mesoamericans developing domesticated plants such as maize, beans, tomatoes, squash, cotton, vanilla, avocados, cacao, various kinds of spices, and more. Domestic turkeys and Muscovy ducks were the only domestic ticated fowl in the pre-Hispanic period and small dogs were raised for food. There were no large domesticated animals.

During the early colonial period, the Spanish introduced more plants and the concept of animal husbandry, principally cattle, horses, donkeys, mules, goats and sheep, and barn yard animals such as chickens and pigs. Farming from the colonial period until the Mexican Revolution was focused on large private properties. After the Revolution these were broken up and the land redistributed. Since the latter 20th century NAFTA and economic policies have again favored large scale commercial agricultural holdings. Read more...
Communications in Mexico are regulated by the Secretariat of Communication and Transportation (Secretaría de Comunicaciones y Transportes or SCT), a federal executive cabinet ministry and by the Federal Telecommunications Institute (Instituto Federal de Telecomunicaciones or IFT).

Mexico's communication services market is among the largest in Latin America, liberalized in the 1990s, with the landmark privatization of Teléfonos de México (Telmex), a previously state-owned monopoly. Since then, new operators have entered the market, but Telmex still remains the dominant player. Read more...
This is a list of rivers of Mexico, listed from north to south. There are 246 rivers on this list. Alternate names for rivers are given in parentheses. Read more...
Hurricane Wilma

Hurricane Wilma of 2005 drifted over the northeast portion of the Yucatán peninsula for a couple of days, dropping significant rains. A report of 1,576 millimetres (62.0 in) was reported by the Servicio Meteorológico Nacional in Mexico, which is the wettest known 24-hour rainfall amount ever measured in Mexico. Second on the list is from Tropical Storm Frances in 1998, which accumulated up to 1,019 millimetres (40.1 in) of rain at Independencia in southern Chiapas. Below is a list of the highest known storm total rainfall amounts from individual tropical cyclones across Mexico. Most of the rainfall information was provided by the Mexico's National Weather Service, Servicio Meteorológico Nacional, which is a part of the National Water Commission, Comisión Nacional del Agua. Read more...
The First Mexican Republic known also as the First Federal Republic (Spanish: Primera República Federal) was a federated republic and nation-state officially designated the United Mexican States (Spanish: Estados Unidos Mexicanos, listen (help·info)). "Independence transformed Mexico from Spain's largest and most prosperous colony to a sovereign nation suffering economic decline and political strife." The First Mexican Republic lasted from 1824 to 1835, when conservatives under Antonio López de Santa Anna transformed it into a centralized state, the Centralist Republic of Mexico.

The republic was proclaimed on November 1, 1823 by the Constituent Congress, months after the fall of the Mexican Empire ruled emperor Agustin I, a former royalist military officer-turned-insurgent for independence. The federation was formally and legally established on October 4, 1824 when the Federal Constitution of the United Mexican States came into force. Read more...

Selected biographies

Camil in 2015

Jaime Federico Said Camil Saldaña da Gama (born July 22, 1973), known professionally as Jaime Camil, is a Brazilian-Mexican actor, singer and television personality. He is best known for his roles as Fernando Mendiola in La fea más bella and Rogelio de la Vega in Jane the Virgin. Read more...
Venustiano Carranza Garza (Spanish pronunciation: [benusˈtjano kaˈransa]; 29 December 1859 – 21 May 1920) was one of the main leaders of the Mexican Revolution, whose victorious northern revolutionary Constitutionalist Army defeated the counter-revolutionary regime of Victoriano Huerta (February 1913 – July 1914) and then defeated fellow revolutionaries after Huerta's ouster. He secured power in Mexico, serving as head of state from 1915–1917. With the promulgation of a new revolutionary Mexican Constitution of 1917, he was elected president, serving from 1917 to 1920.

Known as the "Primer Jefe" or "First Chief" of the Constitutionalists, Carranza was a shrewd politician rather than a military man. He supported Francisco I. Madero's challenge to the Díaz regime in the 1910 elections and Madero's Plan de San Luis Potosí to nullify the elections and overthrow Díaz by force. He was appointed the governor of his home state of Coahuila by Madero. When Madero was murdered in February 1913, Carranza drew up the Plan de Guadalupe, a purely political plan to oust Huerta. Carranza became the leader of northern forces opposed to Huerta. He went on to lead the Constitutionalist faction to victory and become president of Mexico. Read more...
Jorge Armando Arce Armenta (/ˈɑːrseɪ/; born July 27, 1979), best known as Jorge Arce, is a Mexican former professional boxer who competed from 1996 to 2014. He is a multiple-time world champion, and the second boxer from Mexico to win world titles in four weight divisions (after Érik Morales, who first achieved the feat two months prior). In a storied career, Arce held the WBO light flyweight title from 1998 to 1999; the WBC and lineal light flyweight titles from 2002 to 2004; the WBO super flyweight title in 2010; the WBO junior featherweight title in 2011; and the WBO bantamweight title from 2011 to 2012. Additionally he held the WBC interim flyweight title from 2005 to 2006, the WBA interim super flyweight title from 2008 to 2009, and challenged once for the WBC featherweight title in his final fight in 2014.

Arce remains a favorite fighter among boxing fans and is also the older brother of title contender Francisco Arce Armenta. Arce's trademark ring entrance featured him wearing a black cowboy hat (earning him the nickname "The Mexican Cowboy") and sucking a cherry lollipop. Read more...
Saint Cristóbal Magallanes Jara, also known as Christopher Magallanes (July 30, 1869 – May 25, 1927), is a martyr and saint venerated in the Catholic Church who was killed without trial on the way to say Mass during the Cristero War after the trumped-up charge of inciting rebellion. Read more...
Sainz in 2013

Inés Sainz Gallo de Pérez (Spanish pronunciation: [iˈnes ˈsains]; September 20, 1978) is a Mexican journalist hosting the Spanish-language sports interview program DxTips (or, Deportips); she is also a journalist for Azteca Deportes. Sainz and her husband, who reside in Mexico, own the production company that created the show. Sainz works in the English language as a boxing match hostess. Read more...
Victor Espinoza in 2016

Victor Espinoza (born May 23, 1972) is a jockey in American Thoroughbred horse racing who won the Triple Crown in 2015 on American Pharoah. He began riding in his native Mexico and went on to compete at racetracks in California. He has won the Kentucky Derby three times, riding War Emblem in 2002, California Chrome in 2014, and American Pharoah in 2015. He also won the Preakness Stakes three times, in those same years and with the same horses. He was the first jockey in history to enter the Belmont Stakes with a third opportunity to win the Triple Crown; his 2015 victory made him the oldest jockey and first Hispanic jockey to win the award. Read more...
Guillermo Haro Barraza (Spanish pronunciation: [ɡiˈʝeɾmo ˈaɾo βaˈrasa]; 21 March 1913 – 26 April 1988) was a Mexican astronomer. Through his own astronomical research and the formation of new institutions, Haro was influential in the development of modern observational astronomy in Mexico. Internationally, he is best known for his contribution to the discovery of Herbig–Haro objects. Read more...
Mares in 2010

Abner Mares Martínez (born November 28, 1985) is a Mexican-American professional boxer. He has held multiple world championships in three weight classes, including the IBF bantamweight title from 2011 to 2012, the WBC super bantamweight title from 2012 to 2013, the WBC featherweight title in 2013, and the WBA (Regular) featherweight title from 2016 to 2018. As an amateur, Mares won numerous medals at international tournaments while representing Mexico. He grew up in the city of Hawaiian Gardens, California and holds dual citizenship with the United States and Mexico. Read more...
Altagracia Ugalde Mota (born January 10, 1971), better known as Ana Bárbara, is a Mexican recording artist, singer, songwriter, producer, actress, television personality and model. She has become a prominent figure within Latin entertainment since her professional debut in 1994 and is among one of the leading female figures in regional Mexican music.

She is recognized for her musical talent as well as her sex appeal. With a distinct vocal range, songwriting and producing talent, Bárbara has defined the modern Grupero performance and is one of the few regional Mexican acts to garner an international following that extends beyond México and the United States. Read more...

Did you know...

... that a new soccer team in Albuquerque, New Mexico, will schedule its home games around the Albuquerque Isotopes baseball team, with whom it will share a stadium?
... that in 2017, Lorena Cuéllar Cisneros joined eight other Mexican senators in switching parties after a dispute over commission seats, more than doubling the Labor Party's ranks?
... that while mayor of Torreón, Mexico, Miguel Riquelme Solís led the construction of a cable car to the Cristo de las Noas statue which he dedicated as governor of Coahuila?
... that Governor-elect of Tamaulipas, Mexico, Francisco Javier García Cabeza de Vaca was born in McAllen, Texas, and played soccer at Houston Baptist University?
... that, as well as shooting at Pinewood Studios and on Skellig Michael, additional filming for Star Wars: Episode VIII will take place in Mexico?
... that the Day of the Dead was commemorated by Betsabeé Romero in Mexico City in 2016 with an installation of 103 trajineras decorated as memorial offerings?

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Selected images

Francisco I. Madero with Emiliano Zapata, in Cuernavaca during the Mexican Revolution
Street in the historic center of Morelia. Mexico has historical architecture in most of its towns being the country with the highest number of Colonial buildings and structures in all of the Americas and also placing a vast number of Pre-colonial monuments.
View of the Pyramid of the Moon and entrance to the Quetzalpapálotl Palace. During its peak in the Classic era, Teotihuacán dominated the Valley of Mexico and exerted political and cultural influence in other areas, such as in the Petén Basin.
NAFTA signing ceremony, October 1992. From left to right: (standing) President Carlos Salinas de Gortari (Mexico), President George H. W. Bush (U.S.), and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney (Canada); (seated) Jaime Serra Puche (Mexico), Carla Hills (U.S.), and Michael Wilson (Canada)
Federal Police headquarters in Mexico City
Offering of Day of the Dead (Día de Muertos).
Mexican built Sierra-class corvettes
Some parts of Mexico permanently moved to the US in 1848
Mariachi group playing at the 10th anniversary celebration of Wikipedia in Guadalajara. Mariachi is a musical expression inscribed in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List in 2011.
Cave art painting occurred about 7,500 years old in Baja California Peninsula. Culturally and geographically very distinct from Mesoamerica, indigenous peoples inhabited the region since the end of the Pleistocene.
The Palacio de Bellas Artes is the preeminent fine arts hall in Mexico.
A proportional representation of Mexico's exports. The country has the most complex economy in Latin America.
Benito Juárez, 26th President of Mexico and implanter of La Reforma
1945 Mural by Diego Rivera depicting the view from the Tlatelolco markets into Mexico-Tenochtitlan, the largest city in the Americas at the time.
A Mexican Navy Eurocopter
Central Library of the National Autonomous University of Mexico
Storming of the Teocalli by Cortés and his troops. Emanuel Leutze. Painting, 1848
Our Lady of Guadalupe, patron saint of Mexico. This painting of her at the Basilica of Guadalupe is among her most notable depictions; scientists still debate if it should be dated 1531, the year of the first apparition, or the 1550s.
Topographic map of Mexico
The Estadio Azteca, regarded as one of the iconic football stadiums in the world, hosted the 1970 and 1986 World Cup finals
Equestrian statue of Charles IV, Mexico City, Manuel Tolsá. The Spanish Monarch was the maximum authority in New Spain and ruled via a viceroy.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, assumed office recently on 1st December 2018
Image of Hernán Cortés and La Malinche meeting Moctezuma II from the Lienzo de Tlaxcala, created c. 1550 by the Tlaxcalans to remind the Spanish of their loyalty and the importance of Tlaxcala during the conquest.
The territorial evolution of Mexico after independence, noting the secession of Central America (purple), Chiapas annexed from Guatemala (blue), losses to the U.S. (red, white and orange) and the reannexation of the Republic of Yucatán (red)
Depiction of the founding myth of Mexico-Tenochtitlan from the Codex Mendoza
Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla
Population pyramid 2016
Depiction of the Abrazo de Acatempan between Agustín de Iturbide, left, and Vicente Guerrero
Actress Dolores del Río, Hollywood star in the 1920s and 1930s and prominent figure of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema in the 1940s and 1950s
Site of the Supreme Court of Justice
Depiction of the casta system in Mexico. Painting of 1777.
Students in a burned bus during the protests of 1968
Former President Enrique Peña Nieto with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada and President Barack Obama of the United States at the 2016 North American Leaders' Summit
Puebla de Zaragoza is the most populated city of Puebla
Mexico-Tenochtitlan Templo Mayor ruins in downtown Mexico City.
The Baluarte Bridge is the highest cable-stayed bridge in the world, the fifth-highest bridge overall and the highest bridge in the Americas.
Portrait of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, oil on canvas, 1772
Detail of the 1947 mural of Diego Rivera that created La Catrina. The image of La Catrina is commonly seen reflected as part of the Day of the Dead (Día de Muertos) celebrations throughout the country.
Talavera pottery
Morelos 3, the latest addition to the Morelos Satellite System
Guanajuato City became the world's leading silver producer in the 18th century as a result of the veta madre.
Mexico map of Köppen climate classification
Game at the Estadio de Béisbol Monterrey. Baseball is most popular in the North (particularly Northwest) and Southeast of Mexico.

In the news

5 December 2018 –: Claudia Sheinbaum takes office as Head of Government of Mexico City, becoming the first woman and first Jewish person to serve as Mexico City's mayor. (JTA)
1 December 2018 – Presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador: Andrés Manuel López Obrador is sworn in as the 58th President of Mexico. (The Guardian)
30 November 2018 – 2018 G20 Buenos Aires summit: The United States, Canada and Mexico sign the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement in Buenos Aires, replacing the North American Free Trade Agreement. (TTNews) (NPR)
25 November 2018 – Mexico–United States relations, Central American migrant caravans: The San Ysidro Port of Entry, the largest border crossing on the Mexico–United States border, is closed after U.S. border patrol agents fire tear gas at asylum-seeking Central American migrants attempting to enter into the United States. The events were triggered by Mexican police breaking up a migrant protest, resulting in a rush toward the border. (Reuters)
24 November 2018 – Mexico–United States relations: U.S. President Donald Trump announces that migrants seeking asylum at the southern border will wait in Mexico while their claims are processed in U.S. courts. Mexico's incoming foreign minister Marcelo Ebrard denies an agreement has been reached, and says "(no) specific proposal" has been received from the United States. Andrés Manuel López Obrador's administration will take power next Saturday, December 1. (USA Today) (BBC)
18 November 2018 – Central American migrant caravans: Hundreds of residents take to the streets in the Mexican city Tijuana, in protest of the arrival of thousands of migrants trying to get to the United States. (BBC)