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The United Mexican States or Mexico (Spanish: Estados Unidos Mexicanos or México) is a country located in North America, bordered by the United States to the north, and Belize and Guatemala to the southeast. It is the northernmost and westernmost country in Latin America, and also the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world.

Culture

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. Influence from the United States has also shaped Mexican culture, and to a lesser extent, influences from Europe, Africa, and Asia.

Art

Mexico is known worldwide for its folk art traditions, mostly derived from a combination of the indigenous and Spanish crafts. Particularly notable among handicrafts are the clay pottery made in the valley of Oaxaca and the bird and animal figures made in the village of Tomala. Colorfully embroidered cotton garments, cotton or wool shawls and outer garments, and colorful baskets and rugs are seen everywhere. Between the Spanish conquest and the early Twentieth Century, Mexican fine arts were largely in imitation of European traditions. After the Mexican Revolution, a new generation of Mexican artists led a vibrant national movement that incorporated political, historic, and folk themes in their work. The painters Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros became world famous for their grand scale murals, often displaying clear social messages. Rufino Tamayo and Frida Kahlo (Rivera's wife) produced more personal works with abstract elements. Mexican art photography was largely fostered by the work of Manuel Alvarez Bravo.

Literature and Poetry

Mexico has a long and distinguished literary tradition. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1651-1695), a nun in Colonial Mexico, wrote many fine poems and won fame for her defense of women's rights. José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi (1776-1827) is often considered the first important Hispanic American novelist for his satirical novel El Periquillo Sarniento ("The Mangy Parrot") (c. 1816).

Juan Rulfo wrote two of the most influential works in the history of latin-american literature: El llano en llamas, a collection of short stories, where Rulfo depicts themes such as social injustice and every-day life in the poorest zones of mexico, and Pedro Paramo, a both oniric and realistic novel which is commonly associated with the beginning of "magical realism".

The influential poet Octavio Paz won the Nobel Literature Prize in 1990. He was an influential figure also in the fields of diplomatic service and cultural promotion.

The city of Guadalajara hosts the biggest and most important International Book Fair of the Spanish-speaking world each year, known best as the "FIL" (Feria Internacional del Libro de Guadalajara in Spanish, or Guadalajara International Book Fair in English).

Music

The music of Mexico is extraordinarily diverse and features a wide range of different musical styles. The best-known Mexican genre by far is ranchera, interpreted by a band called mariachi. This style of traditional Mexican song which is considered old-fashioned but respected traditional music and is usually listened to as much as modern music. Mexican ranchera styles, including norteño and banda, are not only popular within Mexico itself, but they are also frequently enjoyed by Mexican immigrants in both rural and urban communities within the United States. Norteño, similar to Tejano music and Tex-Mex, arose in the 1830s and 40s in the Rio Grande border region of southern Texas. Influenced by Bohemian immigrant miners, its rhythm was derived from the European polka dance popular during the 1800s. Banda, similar to norteño in musical form, originated from the Mexico state of Sinaloa during the 1960s. Other new styles such as cumbia, pop, and rock have seen increased popularity as the music of Mexico faces a new generation of young people.

Southern Mexican folk music is centered around the marimba, which remains popular in Chiapas and Oaxaca. In Yucatán the traditional Jarana music and dance is popular.

Modern Mexican musical styles are also changing Mexican music. Cumbia, pop, hip-hop, and rock, which are heavily influenced by music from the Caribbean islands and the United States, are increasingly becoming popular among Mexican youths on both sides of the border.

Cuisine

Mexican cuisine is known for its intense and varied flavors, colorful decoration, and the variety of spices that it has. Mexican gastronomy, in terms of diversity of appealing tastes and textures, is one of the richest in the world, rich in proteins, vitamins, and minerals, though some people unaccustomed to eating it characterize it as greasy and excessively spicy.

When Spanish conquistadores arrived in the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan (on the ruins of which Mexico City was built), they found that the common people's diet consisted largely of corn-based dishes with chilis and herbs, usually complemented with beans and squash. Later on, the conquistadores added to the indigenous foods of pre-Columbian Mexico (including chocolate, maize, tomato, vanilla, avocado, papaya, pineapple, chile pepper, beans, squash, sweet potato, peanut and turkey)--- rice, beef, pork, chicken, wine, garlic, and onions that they brought with them from Spain. The totopo (a deep-fried chip of corn tortilla) may have been created as part of this cuisine.

Most of today's Mexican cuisine is based on Native American traditions, including the Aztecs and Maya, combined with culinary trends introduced by Spanish colonists. Quesadillas, for example, are a flour or corn tortilla with cheese (often a Mexican-style soft farmer's cheese such as Queso Fresco), beef, chicken, pork, etc. The indigenous part of this and many other traditional foods is the chile pepper. Foods like these tend to be very colorful because of the rich variety of vegetables (among them red peppers, green peppers, chiles, broccoli, cauliflower, and radishes) and meats in Mexican food. There is also a sprinkling of Caribbean influence in Mexican cuisine, particularly in some regional dishes from the states of Veracruz and Yucatan. The French occupation of Mexico also yielded some influences as well: the bolillo, a Mexican take on the French roll, certainly seems to reflect this.

Mexican food varies by region, because of local climate and geography and ethnic differences among the indigenous inhabitants and because these different populations were influenced by the Spaniards in varying degrees. The north of Mexico is known for its beef production and meat dishes; southeastern Mexico, on the other hand, is known for its spicy vegetable and chicken-based dishes. Veracruz-style is a common method of preparing seafood.

There are also more exotic dishes, cooked in the Aztec or Maya style, with ingredients ranging from iguana to rattlesnake, deer, spider monkey, and even some kinds of insects. This is usually known as comida prehispanica (or prehispanic food), and although not very common, is relatively well known.

Mexican cuisine has combined with the cuisine of the southwest United States to form Tex-Mex cuisine.

 History

Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilizations

Between 1800 and 300 BC, complex cultures began to form. Some matured into advanced Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilizations such as the: Olmec, Teotihuacan, Maya, Zapotec, Mixtec, Huaxtec, Purepecha, Toltec and Mexica (a.k.a. "Aztecs"), which flourished for nearly 4,000 years before first contact with Europeans.

These indigenous civilizations are credited with many inventions in: building pyramid-temples, mathematics, astronomy, medicine, writing, highly-accurate calendars, fine arts, intensive agriculture, engineering, an abacus calculation, a complex theology, and the wheel. Without any draft animals the wheel was used only as a toy. The only metals they apparently knew how to use were native copper and gold.

Spanish conquest

In 1519, the native civilizations of Mexico were invaded by Spain with about 600 soldiers and old world diseases, and two years later in 1521, the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) was conquered. It is said that the dead from small pox filled the streets and canals. Hundreds of thousands of Aztecs died of disease. Francisco Hernández de Córdoba explored the shores of South Mexico in 1517, followed by Juan de Grijalva in 1518. The most important of the early Conquistadores was Hernán Cortés, who entered the country in 1519 from a native coastal town which he renamed "Puerto de la Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz" (today's Veracruz).

Contrary to popular opinion, Spain did not conquer all of Mexico when Cortes conquered Tenochtitlan in 1521. It would take another two centuries after the Siege of Tenochtitlan before the Conquest of Mexico would be complete, as sporadic and ineffective rebellions, attacks, and wars continued against the Spanish by other native peoples. Disease ran rampant throughout Mexico dropping the population from about 8,000,000 to 2,000,000 by 1600.

The colonial period

The Spanish defeat of the Mexica in 1521 marked the beginning of the 300 year-long colonial period of Mexico as New Spain. After the fall of Tenochtitlan Mexico City, it would take decades of sporadic warfare to pacify the rest of Mesoamerica. Particularly fierce were the "Chichimeca wars" in the north of Mexico (1576-1606).

During the colonial period, which lasted from 1521 to 1810, Mexico was known as "Nueva España" or "New Spain", whose territories included today's Mexico, the Spanish Caribbean islands, Central America as far south as Costa Rica, an area comprising today's southwestern United States, and the Philippine Islands.

Mexican war of independence

After Napoleon I invaded Spain and put his brother on the Spanish throne, Mexican Conservatives and rich land-owners who supported Spain's Bourbon royal family objected to the comparatively more liberal Napoleonic policies. Thus an unlikely alliance was formed in Mexico: liberales, or Liberals, who favored a democratic Mexico, and conservadores, or Conservatives, who favored Mexico ruled by a Bourbon monarch who would restore the old status quo. These two elements agreed only that Mexico must achieve independence and determine her own destiny.

Taking advantage of the fact that Spain was severely handicapped under the occupation of Napoleon's army, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a Catholic priest of Spanish descent and progressive ideas, declared Mexico's independence from Spain in the small town of Dolores on September 16, 1810. This act started the long war that eventually led to the official recognition of independence from Spain in 1821. As with many early leaders in the movement for Mexican independence, Hidalgo was captured by opposing forces and executed. The newly independent Mexico, after no European monarch accepted the throne of Mexico, ruled by Agustín de Iturbide, who upon his coronation as Emperor of Mexico became known as Agustin I until his overthrow by republican forces led by Guadalupe Victoria and Antonio López de Santa Anna.

War with the United States

Many presidentes, emporers, dictators, etc. came and went, which brought a long period of instability that lasted most of the 19th century. A dominant figure of the second quarter of that century was the dictator Antonio López de Santa Anna who was president seven different times, many of them unsuccessful.

During this period, many of the mostly unsettled territories in the north were lost to the United States. Santa Anna was Mexico's leader during the conflict with Texas, which declared itself independent from Mexico in 1836 and by beating Santa Anna and the Mexican army made it stick. Again, off and on, Santa Anna as president tried to rule during the disastrous Mexican-American War (1846-48). The US government sent troops to Texas in order to secure the territory ignoring Mexican demands for US withdrawal. Mexico, despite having ignored Texas for ten years, saw this as an US intervention in internal affairs by supporting a "rebel" province.

The struggle for liberal reforms

In 1855 Ignacio Comonfort, leader of the self-described Moderates, was elected president. The Moderados tried to find a middle ground between the nation's Liberals and Conservatives.

The 1857 Constitution

During Comonfort's presidency a new Constitution was drafted. The Constitution of 1857 retained most of the Roman Catholic Church's Colonial era privileges and revenues, but unlike the earlier constitution did not mandate that the Catholic Church be the nation's exclusive religion. Such reforms were unacceptable to the leadership of the clergy and the Conservatives, Comonfort and members of his administration were excommunicated and a revolt was declared.

The War of Reform

This led to the War of Reform, from December 1857 to January 1861. This civil war became increasingly bloody and polarized the nation's politics. Many of the Moderados came over to the side of the Liberales, convinced that the great political power of the Church needed to be curbed. For some time the Liberals and Conservatives had their own governments, the Conservatives in Mexico City and the Liberals headquartered in Veracruz. The war ended with Liberal victory, and Liberal president Benito Juárez moved his administration to Mexico City.

French intervention and an emperor

In the 1860s, the country again suffered a military occupation, this time by France, seeking to establish the Habsburg Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian of Austria as Emperor of Mexico, with support from the Roman Catholic clergy and conservative elements of the upper class as well as some indigenous communities. The Second Mexican Empire was then overthrown by President Benito Juárez, with diplomatic and logistical support from the United States and the military expertise of General Porfirio Díaz. General Ignacio Zaragoza defeated the largely unsupported French Army in Mexico at the city of Puebla on May 5, 1862, celebrated as Cinco de Mayo ever since. However, after his death, the city was lost in early 1863, following a renewed French attack which penetrated as far as Mexico City, forcing Juárez to organize a new itinerant government.

Order, progress and the Díaz dictatorship

After the victory, there was resentment by Conservatives against President Juárez (who they thought concentrated too much power and wanted to be re-elected) so one of the army's generals, named Porfirio Díaz, rebelled against the government with the proclamation of the Plan de Tuxtepec in 1876.

Díaz became the new president. During a period of more than thirty years (1876-1911) while he was the strong man in Mexico, the country's infrastructure improved greatly thanks to investments from other countries. This period of relative prosperity and peace is known as the Porfiriato. But the people were not happy with the form of government during the Porfiriato: it was attracting investors because the pay for workers was very low, which produced a very steep social division: only a small group of investors (domestic and foreign) were getting rich, but the vast majority of the people remained in abject poverty. Democracy was completely suppressed, and dissent was dealt with in repressive, often brutal ways (see, for example, Nogales, Veracruz).

The Mexican economic miracle

During the next four decades, Mexico experienced impressive economic growth (from a very low base), and historians call this period "El Milagro Mexicano", the Mexican Miracle. This was in spite of falling foreign confidence in investment during the worldwide great depression. The assumption of mineral rights and subsequent nationalisation of the oil industry into PEMEX during the presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas del Río was a popular move.

NAFTA

On January 1, 1994, Mexico became a full member of the North American Free Trade Agreement, joining the United States of America and Canada in a large and prosperous economic bloc. On March 23, 2005, the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America was signed by the elected leaders of those countries.

The end of PRI's hegemony

Even though it was frequently accused of corruption, influence peddling and blatant election fraud, the PRI managed to retain a firm grip on political power in Mexico until the end of the 20th century. Almost all public offices were held by members of the PRI.

It was not until the 1980s that the PRI lost the first state governorship, an event that marked the beginning of the party's loss of hegemony. Through the electoral reforms started by president Carlos Salinas de Gortari and consolidated by president Ernesto Zedillo, by the mid 1990s the PRI had lost its majority in Congress. In 2000, after seventy years, the PRI lost a presidential elections to a candidate of the National Action Party (PAN), Vicente Fox. He was the 69th president of Mexico. The continued non-PAN majority in the Congress of Mexico prevented him from implementing most of his proposed reforms.

Politics

Mexico's political model has much in common with that of the United States. The 1917 Constitution provides for a federal republic with powers separated into independent executive, legislative, and judicial branches. Historically, the executive is the dominant branch, with power vested in the president who promulgates and executes the laws of the Congress. Congress has played an increasingly important role since 1997, when opposition parties first formed a majority in the legislature. The president also legislates by executive decree in certain economic and financial fields, using powers delegated from Congress. The president is elected by universal adult suffrage for a six-year term and may not hold office a second time. There is no vice-president in the republic.

 Geography

Situated in the southwestern part of mainland North America and roughly triangular in shape, Mexico stretches more than 3,000 kilometres (1,875 mi) from northwest to southeast. Its width is varied, from more than 2,000 kilometres (1,250 mi) in the north and less than 220 kilometres (137 mi) at the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in the south.

Mexico is bordered by the United States to the north, and Belize and Guatemala to the southeast. Baja California in the west is a 1,250 kilometre (775 mi) 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 of them. (See list of mountains in Mexico). Mexico is about one-fourth the size of the United States.

The terrain and climate vary from rocky deserts in the north to tropical rain forest in the south. Mexico's major rivers include the Río Bravo del Norte (Rio Grande) and the Usumacinta on its northern and southern borders, respectively, together with the Grijalva, Balsas, Pánuco, and Yaqui in the interior. 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 point, temperatures are fairly constant year round and vary solely as a function of elevation.

On September 19, 1985, an earthquake measuring approximately 8.0 on the Richter scale struck Michoacán and inflicted severe damage on Mexico City. Estimates of the number of dead range from 6,500 to 30,000 (see 1985 Mexico City earthquake).

 Climate

 Economy

According to the World Bank, Mexico ranks 12th in the world in regard to GDP and has the highest per capita income in its region; and it is firmly established as an upper middle-income country. 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.

Mexico has a free-market economy that recently entered the trillion dollar class. It contains a mixture of modern and outmoded industry and agriculture, increasingly dominated by the private sector. The number of state-owned enterprises in Mexico has fallen from more than 1,000 in 1982 to fewer than 200 in 1999. Recent administrations have expanded competition in seaports, railroads, telecommunications, electricity generation, natural gas distribution, and airports.

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.

Mexico has entered a new era of macroeconomic stability. 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 opened its markets to free trade like few other countries have done, lowering its trade barriers with more than 40 countries in 12 Free Trade Agreements, including Japan and the European Union. However more than 85% of the trade is still done with the United States. Government authorities expect that by putting more than 90% of trade under free trade agreements with different countries Mexico will lessen its dependence on the United States. The government is seeking to sign an additional agreement with Mercosur.

Mexico still needs to overcome many structural problems as it strives to modernize its economy and raise living standards. Ongoing economic concerns include 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. If municipalities of Mexico were classified as countries in the HDI World Ranking, Benito Juárez, one of the political districts in D.F., would have a similar development than that of Italy, whereas Metlatonoc, Guerrero, would have an HDI similar to that of Malawi.

The country has continued to struggle with such issues as economic control and development, especially with the petroleum sector and the evolution of trade relations with the United States. Corruption and crime continue to be chronic problems. The present administration is cognizant of the need to upgrade infrastructure, modernize the tax system and labor laws, and allow private investment in the energy sector, but has been unable to win the support of the opposition-led Congress.

 Demographics

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

Mexico is racially and ethnically diverse. According to the CIA World Factbook, about 60% of the population is mestizo (mixed Spanish and Amerindian), and another 30% is Amerindian or predominantly Amerindian. Some 9% is European, mostly of Spanish descent, though there are those of German, Italian, French, Portuguese, British and other European ancestry. The remaining 1% includes Afro-Mexicans, Middle Easterners (primarily Lebanese), and East Asians.

Mexico is also home for many other Latin American emigrants, including most numerously Argentines(Mexico is home to the largest Argentine population outside of Argentina), Cubans, Brazilians, Nicaraguans, other South Americans and Central Americans. The PRI governments in power for most of the 20th century had a policy of granting asylum to fellow Latin Americans fleeing political persecution in their home countries.

According to the Comisión Nacional para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas ("National Indigenous People' Development Council"), the Amerindian population in Mexico is approximately 12.7 million. However, the Mexican government does not collect racial information during censuses. In 2004, the National Institute of Statistics, Geography, and Data Processing had estimated this figure to be 12,089,094 (~11.4% of Mexico's population) of indigenous people of which, more than one million do not speak Spanish and almost five million are bilingual (INEGI, 2004).

Judging by the proportion of people speaking indigenous languages, the states with the highest proportion of indigenous people are Yucatán (37.3%), Oaxaca (37.1%), Chiapas (24.6%) and Quintana Roo (23%). The states of Aguascalientes (0.2%), Coahuila (0.2%), Zacatecas (0.2%) and Nuevo León (0.5%) have the lowest proportion of speakers of indigenous languages (INEGI, 2004).

Mexico is the country where the greatest number of U.S citizens live outside the United States. This may be due to the growing economic and business interdependence of the two countries under NAFTA, and also that Mexico is considered an excellent choice for retirees. A clear example of the latter phenomenon is provided by San Miguel de Allende and many towns along the Baja California peninsula and around Guadalajara, Jalisco. The official figures for foreign-born citizens in Mexico are 493,000 (since 2004), with a majority (86.9%) of these born in the United States (with the exception of Chiapas, where the majority of immigrants are from Central America). The five states with more immigrants are Baja California (12.1% of total immigrants), Federal District (11.4%), Jalisco (9.9%), Chihuahua (9%) and Tamaulipas (7.3%). More than 54.6% of the immigrant population are 15 years old or younger, while 9% are 50 or older. 4.2% of male immigrants and 3.8% of female immigrants did not have formal education while 20.2% of male immigrants and 17.7% of female immigrants had a college degree [INEGI, 2004.

Life expectancy in Mexico increased from 34.7 for men and 33 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).

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