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Travel to Mexico — Unbiased reviews and great
deals from TripAdvisorMexico
| United Mexican States Official
name: Estados Unidos Mexicanos President: Felipe Calderón (2006)
Current government officials
Land area: 742,485 sq mi (1,923,039 sq
km); total area: 761,602 sq mi (1,972,550 sq km) Population (2007 est.): 108,700,891 (growth
rate: 1.2%); birth rate: 20.4/1000; infant mortality rate: 20.4/1000;
life expectancy: 75.6; density per sq mi: 146
Capital and largest city (2003 est.):
Mexico City, 19,013,000 (metro. area), 8,591,309
(city proper) Other large cities:
Ecatepec, 1,731,900 (part of Mexico City metro. area); Guadalajara,
1,665,800; Puebla, 1,345,500; Nezahualcóyotl, 1,250,700 (part of
Mexico City metro. area); Monterrey, 1,135,000 Monetary unit: Mexican peso
Languages:
Spanish, various Mayan, Nahuatl, and other
regional indigenous languages
Ethnicity/race:
mestizo (Amerindian-Spanish) 60%, Amerindian or
predominantly Amerindian 30%, white 9%, other 1%
Religions:
nominally Roman Catholic 89%, Protestant 6%,
other 5% Literacy rate: 91% (2004
est.) Economic summary: GDP/PPP
(2007 est.): $1.346 trillion; per capita $12,800. Real growth rate:
3.3%. Inflation: 4%. Unemployment: 3.7% plus
underemployment of perhaps 25%. Arable land: 13%.
Agriculture: corn, wheat, soybeans, rice, beans, cotton,
coffee, fruit, tomatoes; beef, poultry, dairy products; wood products.
Labor force: 45.38 million; agriculture 18%, industry 24%,
services 58% (2003). Industries: food and beverages, tobacco,
chemicals, iron and steel, petroleum, mining, textiles, clothing,
motor vehicles, consumer durables, tourism. Natural resources:
petroleum, silver, copper, gold, lead, zinc, natural gas, timber.
Exports: $267.5 billion f.o.b. (2007 est.): manufactured goods,
oil and oil products, silver, fruits, vegetables, coffee, cotton.
Imports: $279.3 billion f.o.b. (2007 est.): metalworking
machines, steel mill products, agricultural machinery, electrical
equipment, car parts for assembly, repair parts for motor vehicles,
aircraft, and aircraft parts. Major trading partners: U.S.,
Canada, Spain, South Korea, Japan (2006). Communications: Telephones: main lines in
use: 19.861 million (2006); mobile cellular: 57.016 million (2006).
Radio broadcast stations: AM 850, FM 545, shortwave 15 (2003).
Radios: 31 million (1997). Television broadcast stations:
236 (plus repeaters) (1997). Televisions: 25.6 million
(1997). Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 7.629 million
(2007). Internet users: 22 million (2006). Transportation: Railways: total: 17,665 km
(2006). Highways: total: 235,670 km; paved: 116,751 km
(including 6,144 km of expressways); unpaved: 118,919 km (2004).
Waterways: 2,900 km navigable rivers and coastal canals.
Ports and harbors: Acapulco, Altamira, Coatzacoalcos, Ensenada,
Guaymas, La Paz, Lazaro Cardenas, Manzanillo, Mazatlan, Progreso,
Salina Cruz, Tampico, Topolobampo, Tuxpan, Veracruz. Airports:
1,834 (2007). International disputes:
prolonged regional drought in the border region with the U.S. has
strained water-sharing arrangements.
Major sources and definitions
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Geography
Mexico is bordered by the United States to the north and Belize and
Guatemala to the southeast. Mexico is about one-fifth the size of the
United States. Baja California in the west is an 800-mile (1,287-km)
peninsula and forms the Gulf of California. In the east are the Gulf of
Mexico and the Bay of Campeche, which is formed by Mexico's other
peninsula, the Yucatán. The center of Mexico is a great, high plateau,
open to the north, with mountain chains on the east and west and with
ocean-front lowlands lying outside them.
Government
Federal republic.
History
At least three great civilizations—the Mayas, the Olmecs, and later the
Toltecs—preceded the wealthy Aztec empire, conquered in 1519–1521 by the
Spanish under Hernando Cortés. Spain ruled Mexico as part of the
viceroyalty of New Spain for the next 300 years until Sept. 16, 1810, when
the Mexicans first revolted. They won independence in 1821.
From 1821 to 1877, there were two emperors, several dictators, and
enough presidents and provisional executives to make a new government on
the average of every nine months. Mexico lost Texas (1836), and after
defeat in the war with the U.S. (1846–1848), it lost the area that is now
California, Nevada, and Utah, most of Arizona and New Mexico, and parts of
Wyoming and Colorado under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. In 1855, the
Indian patriot Benito Juárez began a series of reforms, including the
disestablishment of the Catholic Church, which owned vast property. The
subsequent civil war was interrupted by the French invasion of Mexico
(1861) and the crowning of Maximilian of Austria as emperor (1864). He was
overthrown and executed by forces under Juárez, who again became president
in 1867.
The years after the fall of the dictator Porfirio Diaz (1877–1880 and
1884–1911) were marked by bloody political-military strife and trouble
with the U.S., culminating in the punitive U.S. expedition into northern
Mexico (1916–1917) in unsuccessful pursuit of the revolutionary Pancho
Villa. Since a brief civil war in 1920, Mexico has enjoyed a period of
gradual agricultural, political, and social reforms. The Partido Nacional
Revolucionario (PNR; National Revolutionary Party), dominated by
revolutionary and reformist politicians from northern Mexico, was
established in 1929; it continued to control Mexico throughout the 20th
century and was renamed the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI;
Institutional Revolutionary Party) in 1946. Relations with the U.S. were
disturbed in 1938 when all foreign oil wells were expropriated, but a
compensation agreement was reached in 1941.
Following World War II, the government emphasized economic growth.
During the mid-1970s, under the leadership of President José López
Portillo, Mexico became a major petroleum producer. By the end of
Portillo's term, however, Mexico had accumulated a huge external debt
because of the government's unrestrained borrowing on the strength of its
petroleum revenues. The collapse of oil prices in 1986 cut Mexico's export
earnings. In Jan. 1994, Mexico joined Canada and the United States in the
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which will phase out all
tariffs over a 15-year period, and in Jan. 1996, it became a founding
member of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
In 1995, the U.S. agreed to prevent the collapse of Mexico's private
banks. In return, the U.S. won virtual veto power over much of Mexico's
economic policy. In 1997, in what observers called the freest elections in
Mexico's history, the PRI lost control of the lower legislative house and
the mayoralty of Mexico City in a stunning upset. To increase democracy,
President Ernesto Zedillo said in 1999 that he would break precedent and
not personally choose the next PRI presidential nominee. Several months
later, Mexico held its first presidential primary, which was won by former
interior secretary Francisco Labastida, Zedillo's closest ally among the
candidates.
In elections held on July 2, 2000, the PRI lost the presidency, ending
71 years of one-party rule. The new president, Vicente Fox Quesada of the
conservative National Action Party (PAN), vowed tax reform, an overhaul of
the legal system, and a reduction in power of the central government. By
2002, however, Fox had made little headway on his ambitious reform agenda.
Disfavor with Fox was evident in 2003 parliamentary elections, when the
PRI rebounded.
In 2004, a two-year investigation into the “dirty war,” which Mexico's
authoritarian government waged against its opponents in the 1960s and
1970s, led to an indictment—later dropped—against former president Luis
Echeverria for ordering the 1971 shooting of student protesters.
In 2005, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the enormously popular mayor of
Mexico City, emerged as a presidential candidate for the leftist Party of
the Democratic Revolution. López Obrador seemed likely to defeat the party
of the deeply unpopular incumbent, Vicente Fox. But in Oct. 2005, Felipe
Calderón unexpectedly became the candidate of Fox's National Action Party
(PAN), defeating Fox's chosen successor. By spring 2006, Felipe Calderón
had caught up to López Obrador in opinion polls. In the July election,
Calderón won 35.9% of the vote, a razor-thin margin over López Obrador,
who received 35.3%. López Obrador appealed the election, but on Aug. 28
Mexico's top electoral court rejected López Obrador's allegations of
fraud. His supporters held massive protest rallies before and after the
verdict. Calderón was sworn in on Dec. 1.
On February 26, 2008, lawmakers approved new legislation that restricts
cigarette smoking in public spaces. Violators will be heavily fined and
sentenced to up to 36 hours in jail. The government reported that $642
million of health-care costs are due to smoking-related diseases.
In May, 2008, Attorney-general Eduardo Medina Mora announced that over
4,000 people had been killed in drug-related violence since President
Calderon took office—1,400 of the deaths occurred in 2008 alone.
In August, 2008, hundreds of thousands of protesters across the country
marched for the more than 2,700 people who were killed and 300 kidnapped
in drug-related violence since January 2008.
See also Encyclopedia: Mexico.
U.S. State Dept. Country Notes:
Mexico
National Institute of Statistics, Geography, and
Informatics www.inegi.gob.mx/ .
See
also Presidents of Mexico since 1917.
Information Please® Database, © 2007 Pearson Education,
Inc. All rights reserved.
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