Mexico

For other uses, see Mexico (disambiguation).

United Mexican States Estados Unidos Mexicanos
Flag Coat of arms
Anthem: Himno Nacional Mexicano
Capital and largest city	Mexico City
Official languages	None at federal level Spanish (de facto)
Government	Federal republic
• President	Felipe Calderón Hinojosa
Independence  from Spain
• Declared	September 16 1810
• Recognized	September 27 1821
• Water (%)	2.5
Population
• 2006 estimate	108,700,000 (11th)
• 2000 census	100,349,766 [1]
GDP (PPP)	2005 estimate
• Total	$1.191 trillion (13th)
• Per capita	$10,186 (64th)
GDP (nominal)	2005 estimate
• Total	$1.294 trillion (13th)
• Per capita	$7,298 (53rd)
HDI (2004)	0.821  (53rd)
Currency	Peso (MXN)
Time zone	UTC-8 to -6
• Summer (DST)	varies
Calling code	52
ISO 3166 code	MX
Internet TLD	.mx

The United Mexican States (Spanish: ), or simply Mexico (Spanish: ), 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. Mexico is a federal constitutional republic, consisting of 31 states and a federal district, Mexico City (Ciudad de México), which is one of the most populous cities on Earth.

Covering almost 2 million square kilometres, Mexico is the 6th largest country in America by total area and 15th 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.

Origin and history of the name

Main article: Etymology of Mexico

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 ['me∫ihko] 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 suggest 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.

The name of the city was transliterated to Spanish as México with the phonetic value of the x in Medieval Spanish, which represented the voiceless postalveolar fricative (/ʃ/). This sound, as well as the voiced postalveolar fricative (/ʒ/), represented by a j, evolved into a voiceless velar fricative (/x/) during the sixteenth century, which led to the use of the variant Méjico in many publications, most notably in Spain, whereas in Mexico, México was the preferred spelling. In recent years the Real Academia Española, the institution that regulates the Spanish language, determined that the normative recommended spelling in Spanish is México, and the majority of publications in all Spanish-speaking countries now adhere to the new normative, even though the disused variant is still rarely found. In English, the x in Mexico does not represent neither the original nor the current sound, but the double consonant /ks/.

History

Main article: 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.

Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, the father of Mexican independence.

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. In the 1860s the country again suffered a military occupation, this time by France, seeking to establish the Hapsburg Archduke Ferdinand Maximillian of Austria as Emperor of Mexico with support from the Catholic clergy and the conservative Creoles. This Second Mexican Empire was fought off by the then president of the Republic, the Zapotec Indian Benito Juárez, who 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 authoritative and at times oppressive, an example being the Tlatelolco Massacre of 1968, which by some accounts claimed the life of about 250 protesters by security forces. In the 1970s there was extreme dissatisfaction with the administration of Luis Echeverría which took missteps in both, the national and international arenas. Nonetheless in 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. In the early 1980s, however, oil prices plunged an interest raced soared, and in 1982 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.

The first cracks in the political monopolistic position of PRI were seen in the late 1970s with the creation of 100 deputy seats in the Chamber of Deputies assigned through proportional representation with open party-lists, and at the municipal level with the first non-PRI mayor elected by plurality in the early 1980s. However, it is claimed that in 1988 the party resorted to election fraud in order to prevent leftist opposition candidate Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas from winning the national presidential elections who lost to Carlos Salinas. Salinas embarked on a program of neoliberal reforms which fixed the exchanged rate, controlled inflation and culminated with the signature of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which came into effect in 1994. However, that very same day Mexico, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) started a short-lived armed rebellion against the federal government, and has continued as a non-violent opposition movement against neoliberalism and globalization. This, and series of political assassinations and corruption scandals scared portfolio investors scared the flow of foreign capital. Being an election year, in a process that was then called the most transparent in Mexican history, authorities were reluctant to devalue the peso, a move which caused a rapid depletion of the National Reserves. In December 1994, a month after Salinas was succeeded by Ernesto Zedillo, the Mexican economy collapsed.

With a rapid rescue packaged authorized by American president Clinton and major macroeconomic reforms started by president Zedillo, the economy rapidly recovered and growth peaked at almost 7% in 1999. Democratic reforms under Zedillo's administration caused the PRI to lose its absolute majority in the Congress in 1997. In 2000, after 71 years the PRI lost a presidential election to Vicente Fox of the opposition National Action Party (PAN). On March 23 2005, the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America was signed by Vicente Fox. During the 2006 elections, the PRI was further weakened and became the third political force in number of seats in the Chamber of Deputies after PAN and the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). In the concurrent presidential elections, Felipe Calderón, from PAN was declared winner, with a razor-thin margin over Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). López Obrador however claimed the election was fraudulent and pledged to create an alternative government.

Geography

Main article: Geography of Mexico

A picture of Mexico seen from space.

Mexico is situated in the mid-latitudes of the Americas, comprising much of southern North America. Geologically, Central America starts at the isthmus of Tehuantepec which places around 12% of the Mexican territory in this region, even though geopolitically, the limit between North and Central America is usually set at the Mexican border with its Central American neighbors, Belize and Guatemala. Physiography considers the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt to be the limit between the two regions.

Mexican territory includes the more remote Guadalupe Island and the Islas Revillagigedo in the Pacific Ocean. Mexico's total area covers 1,972,550 square kilometers, including approximately 6,000 square kilometers of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea, and Gulf of California (see fig. 3). On its north, Mexico shares a 5000-kilometer 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 kilometer border with Guatemala and a 251-kilometer border with Belize.

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.

Biodiversity

Mexico is rich in biodiversity, in the case of fauna. It ranks first reptiles, with 717 endogenous species, second in mammals with 502 species, and fourth in amphibians with 290 species. In the case of the flora there are 26 000 species of vascular plants.

Government and politics

Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, the current president of Mexico.

Template:Morepolitics The United Mexican States are a federation whose government relies on representative democratic republic based on a congressional system according to the 1917 Constitution. The constitution establishes three levels of government: the federal Union, the state governments and the municipal governments. All officials at the three levels are elected by voters through first-past-the-post plurality, proportional representation or appointed by other elected officials.

The federal government is constituted by the Powers of the Union, the three separate branches of government:

• Legislative: the bicameral Congress of the Union, comprised of a Senate and a Chamber of Deputies, which make federal law, declares war, imposes taxes, approve the national budget and international treaties, and ratify diplomatic appointments.
• Executive: the President of the United Mexican States, the head of state and government, as well as the commander in chief of the Mexican military forces. The President also appoints, with Senate approval, the Cabinet and other officers. The President is responsible of executing and enforcing the law, and has the authority of vetoing bills.
• Judiciary: The Supreme Court of Justice, comprised by eleven judges appointed by the President with Senate approval, who interpret laws and judge cases of federal competency.

According to the constitution, all constituent states must have a republican form of government comprised of three branches: the executive, represented by a governor and an appointed cabinet, the legislative branch constituted by a unicameral congress and the judiciary, also called a Supreme Court of Justice. The federal government can only intervene in state affairs when the republican form of government has ceased to exist and after the approval of the Chamber of Deputies. Since the ratification of the constitution, the federal government has not intervened nor dissolved any branch of a constituent state's government.

All elected executive officials are elected by plurality (fist-past-the-post). Seats to the legislature are elected by plurality and proportional representation at the federal and state level. The Chamber of Deputies of the Congress of the Union is conformed by 300 deputies elected through plurality and 200 deputies by proportional representation with open-party lists for which the country is divided into 5 electoral constituencies or circumscriptions. The Senate is conformed by 64 senators elected in pairs by plurality (two per state), 32 senators assigned to the first minority (one per state) and 32 elected by proportional representation with open-party lists of which the country conforms a single electoral constituency.

In the 2006-2009 Congress eight parties are therein represented; five of them, however, have not received neither in this nor in previous congresses more than 4% of the national votes. The other three parties have historically been the dominant parties in Mexican politics:

• National Action Party (Partido Acción Nacional, PAN): a center-right conservative party founded in 1938
• Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional, PRI): a center-left party that ascribes to social democracy, founded in 1929 to unite all the factions of the Mexican Revolution
• Party of the Democratic Revolution (Partido de la Revolución Democrática, PRD): a left party founded in 1989 formed by the coalition of socialists and liberal parties, the National Democratic Front (Mexico) under the candidacy of Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas.

The PRI held an almost hegemonic power in Mexican politics since 1929. Since 1977 consecutive electoral reforms allowed opposition parties to win posts at the local and federal level. This process culminated in the 2000 presidential elections in which Vicente Fox, candidate of the PAN, became the first non-PRI president to be elected.

In 2006, Felipe Calderón of the PAN faced Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the PRD in a very close election. On September 6, 2006, Felipe Calderón was declared President Elect by the electoral tribunal. His cabinet was sworn in at midnight on December 1, 2006 and Calderón was handed the presidential band by outgoing Vicente Fox at Los Pinos. He was officially sworn as President on the morning of December 1, 2006 in Congress, amidst screaming, yelling and insults, in an extremely quick ceremony.

Administrative divisions

Main article: Political divisions of Mexico

See also: Mexican state name etymologies

The United Mexican States are an union of 31 states and a federal district. Each state has its own constitution and congress, and its citizens elect a governor (gobernador) as well as representatives (diputados locales) to their respective state congresses. Each Mexican state is divided into municipalities, the smallest official political entity in the country, and governed by a mayor (presidente municipal).

Constitutionally, Mexico City, as the capital of the federation and seat of the powers of the Union, is the Federal District, a special political division in Mexico that belongs to the federation as a whole and not to a particular state, and as such, has more limited local rule than the nation's states. Nonetheless, since 1987 it has progressively gained a greater degree of autonomy, and residents now elect a head of government and representatives of a Legislative Assembly directly. Unlike the states, the Federal District does not have a constitution but a statute of government. Mexico City is coterminus and coextensive with the Federal District.

Economy

File:Santa fe1mxc.jpg

Santa Fe, one of Mexico City's five central business districts.

Main article: Economy of Mexico

According to the World Bank, Mexico ranks thirteenth in the world as regards GDP and has the fourth largest per-capita income in Latin America, ranking it among the highest in Latin America. Since the economic crisis of 1994–1995, the country has made an impressive economic recovery. According to the director for Colombia and Mexico of the World Bank, the population below the poverty level has decreased from 24.2% to 17.6% in the general population and from 42% to 27.9% in rural areas from 2000-2004 [2].

Mexico has a mixed economy. It contains a mixture of modern and outmoded industry and agriculture, increasingly dominated by the private sector. Recent administrations have expanded competition in seaports, railroads, natural gas distribution, airports and telecomunications. State oil extraction-company PEMEX, and electricity- generation CFE remain the only legal companies in those sectors, due to a constitutional ban to prevent national or international private funding.

A strong export sector helped to cushion the economy's decline in 1995 and led the recovery in 1996–1999. Private consumption became the leading driver of growth, accompanied by increased employment and higher wages. Its proximity to the US automobile market has meant that companies like Volkswagen and others have located assembly plants in Mexico to serve that market. In addition there is a large television industry providing programming for both Mexicans and the Spanish speaking population in the United States.

Mexico has achieved macroeconomic stability under the recent governments. Following a 4.1% growth in 2004, real GDP grew 3% in 2005. According to the Bank of Mexico recent economic developments include a record-low inflation of 3.3% in 2005, low interest rates, a lower External debt to GDP ratio (8.9%) and a strong peso. Trade with the United States and Canada has tripled since NAFTA was implemented in 1994.

Mexico has more free trade agreements than any country in the world (more than forty), notably those with Japan and the European Union. The NAFTA remains the country's most important free trade agreement, the United States being Mexico's largest trading partner, accounting for more than 85% of the country's trade, and 10% of the country's employment depending of exports to the USA. Mexican government has expressed their goal of joining the Mercosur.

Tourism in Mexico is a large industry, the third in importance. The most notable tourist draws are the ancient Meso-American ruins, and popular beach resorts. The coastal climate and unique culture – a fusion of the European (particularly Spanish) and the Meso-American – also make Mexico attractive. The peak tourists seasons in Mexico are during December and during July and August, with brief surges during the week before Easter and surges during Spring break at many of the beach resort sites which are popular with vacationing college students from the United States.

Ongoing economic concerns include the commercial and financial dependence on the US, low real wages, underemployment for a large segment of the population, inequitable income distribution (top 20% of income earners account for 55% of income), and few advancement opportunities for the largely Amerindian population in the impoverished southern states.

Sharp contrasts in income and Human Development are also a grave problem in Mexico. The 2004 United Nations Human Development Index report for Mexico states that, Benito Juárez, one of the districts in the Distrito Federal and San Pedro Garza García, in the State of Nuevo Leon, would have a similar level of economic, educational and life expectancy development to that of Germany or New Zealand and Metlatonoc in the state of Guerrero, would have an HDI similar to that of Malawi

Demographics

File:Ninoblanco.jpg

An example of a white Mexican

File:Ninaindigena.JPG

An example of an indigenous Mexican

Main article: Demographics of Mexico

See also: Indigenous peoples of Mexico

With an estimated 2005 population of about 106.5 million, Mexico is the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world.

Racially and ethnically Mexico is a diverse country. Its three main ethnic groups are mestizos (mixed Spanish and Amerindian people; 60% of the population); Amerindians (11.4-30%); and Europeans (9-15% ([3]); mostly of Spanish descent, although a large portion are of German, French, Italian, Portuguese, Irish, Polish, Russian, British, and Swedish descent. Mestizo is a term that can be very ambigous to people outside Mexico because the features of a mestizo can dramatically vary between those who look almost European and those who look more Amerindian. European Mexicans are mostly Spanish; the remaining minorities are largely comprised of Afro-Mexican, Middle Eastern and East Asian people. A large Chinese community exists in Mexicali, Baja California and there has been a small but steady influx of Filipinos since the late sixteenth century.

Life expectancy in Mexico increased from 34.7 for men and 33.0 years for women in 1930 to 72.1 for men and 77.1 years for women in 2002. The states with the highest life expectancy are Baja California (75.9 years) and Nuevo Leon (75.6 years). The Federal District has a life expectancy of the same level as Baja California. The lowest levels are found in Chiapas (72.9), Oaxaca (73.2) and Guerrero (73.2 years), although the first two have had the highest increase (19.9 and 22.3% respectively).

The mortality rate in 1970 was 9.7 per 1000 people; by 2001, the rate had dropped to 4.9 men per 1000 men and 3.8 women per 1000 women. The most common reasons for death in 2001 were heart problems (14.6% for men 17.6% for women) and cancer (11% for men and 15.8% for women).

Major cities

The following is a list of the major metropolitan areas of Mexico in order of population (as reported in the 2005 census):

File:Angel of Independence.jpg

Mexico City, DF.

File:Vfoto 27.JPG

Guadalajara, Jalisco.

File:Monterrey nightview.png

Monterrey, Nuevo León.

Rank	City	State	Population	Region
1	Mexico City	Federal District	19.23 million	Center South
2	Guadalajara	Jalisco	4.10 million	West
3	Monterrey	Nuevo Leon	3.66 million	North East
4	Puebla	Puebla	2.11 million	East
5	Toluca	México	1.61 million	Center South
6	Tijuana	Baja California	1.48 million	North West
7	León	Guanajuato	1.43 million	Center
8	Ciudad Juárez	Chihuahua	1.31 million	North West
9	Torreón	Coahuila	1.11 million	North East
10	San Luis Potosí	San Luis Potosí	0.96 million	Center
11	Querétaro	Querétaro	0.92 million	Center
12	Mérida	Yucatán	0.90 million	South East
13	Mexicali	Baja California	0.85 million	North West
14	Aguascalientes	Aguascalientes	0.81 million	Center
15	Tampico	Tamaulipas	0.80 million	North East
16	Cuernavaca	Morelos	0.79 million	Center
17	Acapulco	Guerrero	0.79 million	South
18	Chihuahua	Chihuahua	0.78 million	North East
19	Culiacán	Sinaloa	0.76 million	North West

Languages

Main article: Languages of Mexico

The Mexican Constitution does not mention the existence of a de-jure official language, however Spanish is spoken by 94% of the population and used for all official purposes, making it a de-facto official language. Nonetheless, the Law of Linguistic Rights, approved in 2001, grants all 62 indigenous languages spoken in Mexico the same validity as Spanish in the territories in which they are spoken, and all indigenous peoples are entitled to request documents and some public services in their languages. Along with Spanish, they have the legal status of "national languages". Approximately 6% of the Mexican population speaks an indigenous language, and 3% are not bilingual with Spanish. Of these, Nahuatl is spoken by 1.5 million and Maya by 0.8 million; the most commonly spoken Maya language in Mexico is called Yucatec Maya by linguists but known simply as Maya to its speakers. It is currently spoken by approximately 900,000 people in the Yucatán Peninsula, while others languages, like Lacandon, are spoken by fewer than one hundred people. The Mexican government has promoted and established bilingual education programs in some indigenous rural communities.

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

Mexico has no official religion. The separation between the religious institutions and the political administration of the nation (Separation of Church and State) was marked in the Constitution of 1857, and was ratified in the current constitution.

In a census of 2000, approximately 88 percent of Mexicans were Catholic, 7 percent Christian non-Catholic, 0.5 percent other religions and 3.5 percent irreligious. Data points that the percentage of Catholic believers keeps decreasing every year. The center-west of the country tends to be more religious (Catholic), while both non religious and Protestantism, are more prevalent in the south. After Brazil, Mexico has the second largest population of Catholics in the world. Weekly church attendance is 46% of the Mexican population.

The Catholic to non-Catholic proportion in different communities varies, probably related to socio-cultural differences as for example,in the cities, it tends to be lower. There are some indigenous regions where the members of Protestant creeds can reach a percentage of 30%. Then in some zones of Chiapas the community of Muslim followers can add up to approximately 5.000.

Immigration

About 1 million American expatriates live in Mexico as retirees or businessmen , which represent 1% of the Mexican population and 25% of all American citizens abroad. Other important foreign communities in Mexico are those of Argentine, Brazilian, Cuban, Colombian and Peruvian immigrants, among others. Throughout the 20th century, the country followed a policy of granting asylum to fellow Latin Americans and Europeans (mostly Spaniards) fleeing political persecution in their home countries. Large numbers of Chileans arrived in Mexico and nearby California – especially during the 1850s gold rush – although California was then annexed by the United States. Since the 1970s, over 100,000 Central American people have immigrated to Mexico.

With 1 million American expatriates, Mexico is home of the largest American community abroad. This may be due to the growing economic and business interdependence of the two countries under NAFTA and Mexico's increasing popularity among retirees. A clear example of the latter is seen in San Miguel de Allende and many towns along the Baja California peninsula and around Guadalajara, Jalisco. The official figure for foreign-born citizens in Mexico is 493,000 (since 2004), with a majority (86.9%) of these born in the United States (except Chiapas, where the majority of immigrants are from Central America). The five states with the most immigrants are Baja California (12.1% of total immigrants), Mexico City (the Federal District; 11.4%), Jalisco (9.9%), Chihuahua (9%) and Tamaulipas (7.3%). More than 54.6% of the immigrant population are fifteen years old or younger, while 9% are fifty or older.

Culture

Main article: Culture of Mexico

The culture of Mexico reflects the complexity of Mexico's history through the blending of pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican civilizations and the culture of Spain, imparted during Spain's 300-year colonization of Mexico. Influences from the United States have shaped Mexican culture, and to a lesser extent, influences from Europe, Africa, and Asia.

Social stratification

Barrels of Tequila "reposado".

Mexico boasts a wealth of regional cultures that is unique in America. Every region in the country has a distinct culture, languages, and arts that create a huge mosaic as a whole.

Traditionally, Mexicans have struggled with the creation of a united identity. The issue is the main topic of Labyrinth of Solitude by Mexican Nobel Prize winner Octavio Paz. Mexico is a large country, therefore having many regional cultural traits. The north of Mexico, because of its historically high proportion of non-Spanish immigrants, is the least traditionally Mexican and most cosmopolitan of them all. Central and southern Mexico is where many well-known traditions find their origin. Different accents are used in almost every state in Mexico, making it fairly easy to distinguish the origin of someone by their distinct use of language.

Starting in the 70's, the government supported the use of birth control, despite the country being predominantly Roman Catholic.

Pure pre-Hispanic Americans (known as "indigenous" or "Indians") are likely to be perceived as inferior, even though this rarely reaches the level of aggressive racism. It's a rarity to see pre-Hispanic Americans in high positions. This hidden racism is latent in the use of the word "indio" as an insult for the darker skinned, which is even used between indigenous people to offend each other. Racism against those of African ancestry is said less prevalent than in the U.S., but some Mexicans of African descent have protested against negative racial stereotypes.

There are many Mexicans living in the United States, legally or illegally. Many terms that refer to Mexicans in the United States exist, but Chicano, (a person born in the U.S.A. of Mexican descent) or Pocho ( a person born in the United States with one parent Mexican and the other Anglo-American, and those who speak broken Spanish, or "Spanglish") are the most popular. The majority of Mexicans that pursue a life in the United States come from the lowest economic stratus of society in Mexico, and have created a culture unique to them.

Leisure

Dancing and singing are commonly part of family gatherings, bringing the old and young together, no matter what kind of music is being played, like mariachi, rancheras, cumbia, salsa, merengue or banda.Singing enjoys the same popularity and Mexicans will sing mostly in family and friend reunions. Also, a place, such as a restaurant, with live music and singing will be a preferred choice for Mexicans to eat.

Most Mexicans live in urban areas, therefore they're able to enjoy a great variety of options for leisure. World-class shopping centers are some of the favorites. Most of them, have multiplex cinemas, international and local restaurants, food courts, cafes, bars, bookstores and most of the international renowned clothing brands are found too. Middle class Mexicans tend to travel to lots of places around the world, while lower class Mexicans are prone to travel within their own country, making short weekend trips to a neighbouring city or town.

Broadcast media

Two of the major television networks based in Mexico are Televisa and TV Azteca. Soap operas (telenovelas) are translated to many languages and seen all over the world with renown names like Verónica Castro, Lucía Méndez, Lucero, and Thalía. Even Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna from Y tu mamá también and current Zegna model have appeared in some of them. Some of their TV shows are modeled after American counterparts like Family Feud (100 Mexicanos Dijeron or "A hundred Mexicans said" in Spanish) and Que Dice la Gente, Big Brother, American Idol, Saturday Night Live and others. Nationwide news shows like Las Noticias por Adela on Televisa resemble a hybrid between Donahue and Nightline. Local news shows are modeled after American counterparts like the Eyewitness News and Action News formats. Border cities receive American television and radio stations, while satellite and cable subscription is common for the upper-classes in major cities, often watch American movies and TV shows.

Sports

File:Mariamexicovsarge.jpg

Football (soccer) is the most popular sport in Mexico.

The favorite sport remains football (soccer) (normally spelled Fútbol). Mexico has a very strong league and its ""First Division" (Primera División de México) is extremely popular not only nationally but in all Latin-America.

Baseball is also popular, especially in the Gulf of Mexico and the border states in the NW. The season runs from March to July with playoffs held in August. The Mexican professional league is named the Liga Mexicana de Beisbol.

Professional wrestling (or Lucha libre in Spanish) is a major crowd draw with national promotions such as AAA, LLL, CMLL and others.

American football is practiced 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 polular 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.

The national sport of Mexico is Charreria. Ancient Mexicans played a ball game which still exists in Northwest Mexico (Sinaloa, the game is called Ulama), though it is not a popular sport any more.

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.

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 snorkelling 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 centre for surfing, with few facilities as yet; all these sports attract tourism to Mexico

Education

UNAM, University City.

Main article: Education in Mexico

Mexico has made impressive improvements in education in the last two decades. In 2004, the literacy rate was at 92.2%, and the youth literacy rate (ages 15-24) was 96%. Primary and secondary education (9 years) is free and mandatory. Even though different bilingual education programs have existed since the 1960s for the indigenous communities, after a constitutional reform in the late 1990s, these programs have had a new thrust, and free text books are produced in more than a dozen indigenous languages.

In the 1970s, Mexico became the first country to establish a system of "distance-learning". Schools that use this system are known as telesecundarias in Mexico. The Mexican distance learning secondary education is also transmitted to some Central American countries and to Colombia, and it is used in some southern regions of the United States as a method of bilingual education.

The largest and most prestigious university in Mexico, today numbering over 269,000 students, is the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM) founded in 1551. Three Nobel laureates and most of Mexico's modern-day presidents are among its former students. UNAM conducts 50% of Mexico's scientific research and has presence all across the country with satellite campuses and research centres. The National Autonomous University of Mexico ranks 74th place in the Top 200 World University Ranking published by The Times Higher Education Supplement in 2006 [4], making it the highest ranked Spanish-speaking university in the world as well as the first Latin American university. The second largest university is the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN). These institutions are public, and there are at least a couple of public universities per state.

There are also private universities like the Monterrey's Technological and Higher Education Institute (ITESM), which is ranked by the Wall Street Journal as the 7th top International Business School worldwide (it has thirty-two secondary campuses, apart from the Monterrey Campus), Mexico's Autonomous Technological Institute (ITAM), Universidad de las Américas Puebla (UDLAP), the Ibero-American University (Universidad Iberoamericana).

Science and Technology

Rodolfo Neri Vela was the first Mexican and Latin American to travel to space in 1985.

Throughout history many engineers, doctors, scientists, etc. have helped the country to its development, i.e. Guillermo González Camarena invented the "Chromoscopic adapter for television equipment", the first color television transmission system, or Rodolfo Neri Vela who was the first Mexican and Latin American to travel to space on the STS-61-B mission in 1985, Mexico city was also the first city in Mexico to have electric street illumination in 1881[5].

International rankings

Organisation	Survey	Ranking
Heritage Foundation/The Wall Street Journal	Index of Economic Freedom	60 out of 157
The Economist	Worldwide Quality-of-life Index, 2005	32 out of 111
Reporters Without Borders	Worldwide Press Freedom Index	132 out of 167
Transparency International	Corruption Perceptions Index	70 out of 163
United Nations Development Programme	Human Development Index	53 out of 177

Bibliography

• Cockcroft, James D. (1999). Mexico's Hope: An Encounter with Politics and History. Monthly Review Press. pp. 320 p. ISBN 0-85345-925-8.
  A leftist view of Mexican history.

• Hershfield, Joanne (1999). Mexico's Cinema: A Century of Film and Filmmakers. SR Books. ISBN 0-8420-2682-7. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

• Kernecker, Herbert. When in Mexico, Do as the Mexicans Do. pp. 176 p. ISBN 0-8442-2783-8.
  In-depth information about life in Mexico, including its culture, history, economy and language.

• Krauze, Enrique (1998). Mexico: Biography of Power: A history of Modern Mexico 1810-1996. Perennial. pp. 896 p. ISBN 0-06-092917-0.
  Standard work by a renowned Mexican author.

• Meyer, Michael C. (2000). The Oxford History of Mexico. Oxford University Press. pp. 736 p. ISBN 0-19-511228-8. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  Twenty essays on Mexican history, including cultural history.

• Parkes, Henry Bamford (1972). A History of Mexico (3rd edition ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-395-08410-5. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)

• Preston, Julia (2004). Opening Mexico: The Making of a Democracy. Farrar Straus and Giroux. pp. 608 p. ISBN 0-374-22668-7. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  Mexico's recent history since the Tlatelolco massacre of 1968 told by two journalists.

• San Cristobal : The Political climate, a brief description of the situation in the town of San Cristobal.

• Mexico, a description of Mexico's geographical situation by Ekaterina Zhdanova-Redman.

• The Zimmerman Telegram, a translation of the Zimmerman Telegram into English.

See also

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Lists

• List of cities in Mexico
• List of international trade topics
• List of Latin American artists
• List of Mexicans
• List of universities in Mexico

References

Travel

• Template:Wikitravel

Government

• Presidencia: Presidency of the Republic
• Template:Es icon Gob.mx: Governmental portal
• Template:Es icon Directorio.gob.mx: Official web directory of the Mexican Presidency
• Template:Es icon Cámara de Diputados: Chamber of Deputies
• Template:Es icon Cámara de Senadores: Senate

General information

• Template:Es icon INEGI: National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Information
• Template:Es icon Mexican Council for Economic and Social Development
• Template:Es icon Time zones in Mexico
• Template:Es icon Mexico Development Gateway
• Mexico for kids

Environment

• Biodiversity of Mexico

Newspapers and news agencies

• Spanish

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• English

Herald