List of Mexican states

The United Mexican States ( Spanish Estados Unidos Mexicanos ) - or simply Mexico (Spanish México ) - consists of 31 states (Spanish Estados ), each of which is headed by a governor, as well as the city of Mexico City (Spanish Ciudad de México , until 2016 officially Distrito Federal , federal district ), which forms the capital of the country and is led by a head of government ( Jefe de Gobierno in Spanish ).

list

map	Country	Residents	surface	useful information
	México	15 175 862 (mexiquenses)	21st.355 km²	The Aztec city ​​of Tenochtitlán (Nahuatl, "City of Ténoch" or "City of the Stone Cactus") was the capital of the Aztec Empire from the 14th to the beginning of the 16th century , until it was conquered and destroyed by the Spanish conquistadors .
	Mexico city	8 851 080 ( defeños , chilangos , mexiqueños, capitalinos)	1.479 km²	Mexico City (Spanish Ciudad de México ) is the capital of the United Mexican States. Until 2016 it formed a federal capital district and today it does not belong to any federal state, but forms a separate administrative unit at the same level. Should another city become the capital of the United Mexican States, Mexico City would be converted into a state called Valle de México .
	Veracruz	7 643 194 (veracruzanos)	71.699 km²	The city of Veracruz (Spanish for "true cross") comes from the oldest Spanish settlement on the American mainland: Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz , founded in 1519 by Hernán Cortés .
	Jalisco	7 350 682 (jaliscienses)	80.386 km²	In the pre-colonial era, Jalisco was the name of a kingdom of the Chimalhuacán Confederation, which had friendly relations with the Aztecs.
	Puebla	5 779 829 (poblanos)	33.902 km²	The city ​​of Puebla was founded as Puebla de los Angeles in 1531 to control the trade route between Veracruz and Mexico City.
	Guanajuato	5 486 372 (guanajuatenses)	30th.491 km²	Due to its high silver deposits , Guanajuato was one of the first areas to be colonized by the Spanish in the 1520s, after central Mexico and the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Even today, the silver mines are among the most productive in the world.
	Chiapas	4 796 580 (Chiapanecos)	75.634 km²	Chiapas has one of the greatest biodiversity and natural diversity in the world. There are important Mayan ruins in Chiapas, including Palenque , Bonampak and Yaxchilán .
	Nuevo León	4 653 458 (neoleoneses)	64.924 km²	The capital and only major urban center in Nuevo León ("New Leon") is Monterrey . Because of its distance from the colonial and national centers, Monterrey has been poorly affected by various conflicts in the history of Mexico.
	Michoacan	4 351 037 (michoacanos)	59.864 km²	Michoacán ("place of the fish owners") was the most powerful state of the Purépecha , who were an equal rival to the Aztecs and were mostly in conflict with them.
	Oaxaca	3 801 962 (oaxaqueños)	93.952 km²	During a short period of Aztec rule over the Zapotecs and Mixtecs, the settlement Huaxyacac ​​was founded in 1486 - literally: "those with the fruit in their noses".
	Chihuahua	3 406 465 (chihuahuenses)	244.938 km²	The name is Nahuatl and roughly means "dry and sandy place". The Chihuahua is the smallest breed of dog in the world.
	Guerrero	3 388 768 (guerrerenses)	63.794 km²	The state is named after Vicente Guerrero , a folk hero and leader of the rebels during the final years of the Mexican War of Independence (1810-1821).
	Tamaulipas	3 268 554 (tamaulipecos)	79.384 km²	Because of the long border with Texas, border traffic is very significant. In the border towns of Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa and Matamoros there are also many maquiladoras (industrial companies outsourced from the USA).
	Baja California	3 155 070 (bajacalifornianos)	69.921 km²	In 1996, a 100,000 m² area in Baja California was converted into what was then the largest film studio on the American west coast. Large parts of James Cameron's film Titanic were shot there.
	Coahuila	3 055 795 (coahuilenses)	149.982 km²	Coahuila - or Coahuila de Zaragoza - lies on the border with Texas, which the Rio Grande forms in a wide arc. The border is a total of 512 km long.
	Sinaloa	2 755 391 (sinaloenses)	58.328 km²	The main cities are the capital Culiacan, Mazatlán, a popular destination for tourists from the USA, and Los Mochis in the north of the state.
	Hidalgo	2 665 018 (hidalguenses)	20th.813 km²	Hidalgo is named after Miguel Hidalgo , who initiated Mexico's struggle for independence with his Grito de Dolores (“Outcry of Dolores”).
	Sonora	2 662 480 (sonorenses)	182.052 km²	The state has a share in the Sonoran Desert, the driest desert on the North American continent, which also extends into the neighboring US states of Arizona and New Mexico.
	San Luis Potosí	2 585 518 (potosinos)	63.068 km²	The state of San Luis Potosí is located in the north-central part of Mexico.
	Tabasco	2 238 603 (tabasqueños)	25th.267 km²	Although the name Tabasco is also the state name, the Tabasco plant was first grown on a large scale in the US state of Louisiana to make the Tabasco sauce .
	Yucatan	1 955 577 (yucatecos)	38.402 km²	Yucatán occupies the northwestern part of the peninsula of the same name. Some of the most important Mayan ruins such as Chichén Itzá or Uxmal are located here .
	Querétaro	1 827 937 (queretanos)	11.449 km²	The people live mainly from livestock farming; the area around the capital is heavily industrialized.
	Morelos	1 777 227 (morelenses)	4th.950 km²	The state was named after José María Morelos , a hero of the War of Independence. Thanks to its favorable climate, there are many health resorts in Morelos. Morelos is also the home state of Emiliano Zapata .
	Durango	1 632 934 (duranguenses)	123.181 km²	The Spanish Conquistadores named it after the Spanish city Durango in Biscay (Basque Country). It consists mainly of the desert mountains of the western Sierra Madre .
	Zacatecas	1 490 668 (zacatecanos)	73.252 km²	Zacatecas consists mostly of desert steppe, which already forms the transition to the North American prairie .
	Quintana Roo	1 325 578 (quintanarroenses)	50.212 km²	The largest and most famous city is Cancun . Quintana Roo was named after Andrés Quintana Roo , a freedom poet. Thanks to its location on the Caribbean coast, tourism is very important, the area is marketed as the Riviera Maya.
	Aguascalientes	1 213 445 (aguascalentenses)	5.589 km²	The state was created in 1835 for reasons that are not entirely understandable - legend has it that the wife of the mayor of Aguascalientes kissed the cheek of the then dictator Antonio López de Santa Ana .
	Tlaxcala	1 169 936 (tlaxcaltecas)	4th.016 km²	Before the arrival of the Spaniards, Tlaxcala was an independent state that was constantly at war with the Aztecs. In the “flower wars” of the Aztecs against their neighbors, the aim was to make as many prisoners as possible so that they could be sacrificed to the gods. The closest Tlaxcaltecs were affected the most, so the Spaniards finally accepted them with open arms after a few skirmishes.
	Nayarit	1 084 979 (nayaritas)	26th.979 km²	In this state lies the small swamp settlement of Mexcaltitán , which is sometimes thought to be the original home of the Aztecs.
	Campeche	822.441 (campechanos)	50.812 km²	The state was shaped in pre-Columbian times by the Maya, whose most important ruins in this state are Edzná . To the south-east, on the border with Quintana Roo, lie the ruins of the Río Bec group (the largest of which is Xpujil), the most prominent feature of which is the so-called "dummy pyramids".
	Colima	650.555 (colimenses)	5.191 km²	The origin of the name is unclear. Recent research suggests that Colima comes from Nahuatl acolman , which means "place where the water meanders" or "place the river crosses". The most famous place is the seaside resort of Manzanillo.
	Baja California Sur	637.026 (sudcalifornianos)	73.475 km²	In 1974, the southern half of the state of Baja California was separated and established as a separate state of Baja California Sur. Climatically, it is one of the regions with the lowest rainfall in the world.

See also

• Flags and coats of arms of the states of Mexico
• List of Mexican states by Human Development Index
• List of ISO 3166-2 codes for Mexico

Web links

• INEGI National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Information of Mexico (Spanish)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Mexico en Cifras . INEGI. Archived from the original on July 22, 2012. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved February 3, 2013.