Mexico

Mexico is the northernmost country of Latin America. It lies just south of the United States. The Rio Grande, one of the longest rivers in North America, forms about two-thirds of the boundary between Mexico and the United States. Among all the countries of the Western Hemisphere, only the United States and Brazil have more people than Mexico. Mexico City is the capital and largest city of Mexico. It also is one of the world’s largest metropolitan areas in population.

Towering mountains and high, rolling plateaus cover more than two-thirds of Mexico. Mexico also has tropical forests, deserts, and fertile valleys. Few other countries have such a wide variety of landscapes and climates within such short distances of one another.

To understand Mexico, one must consider its long early history. Centuries ago, the Indigenous (native) population of Mexico developed several advanced civilizations. These civilizations built large cities, developed a calendar, invented a counting system, used a form of writing, and established vast empires. The last Indigenous empire in Mexico—the Aztec empire—fell to Spanish invaders in 1521. For the next 300 years, Mexico was a Spanish colony. The Spaniards took Mexico’s agricultural and mineral riches. They also introduced many changes in farming, government, industry, population, and religion. The descendants of the Spaniards became Mexico’s ruling class. Most of the Indigenous people remained poor and uneducated.

During the Spanish colonial period, a third group of people developed in Mexico. They became known as mestizos. These people had both Indigenous and European ancestors. Some of them had African ancestors as well.

Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821. Over the next 50 years, the country experienced civil war, economic decline, and foreign intervention that resulted in the loss of half its territory. An uprising called the Mexican Revolution began in 1910, when the people of Mexico overthrew a long-standing dictatorship. The revolutionaries promised to work for greater social justice, democratic reform, and economic development. As a result of the revolution, the government took over huge, privately owned landholdings and divided them among millions of landless farmers. The government also established a national school system and built many hospitals and housing projects. To deal with the pressure of rapid population growth on the economy, the government especially encouraged the development of manufacturing and petroleum production.

The great majority of Mexicans are mestizos. Indigenous people make up the second largest population group. Both groups generally take great pride in their Indigenous heritage. A number of government programs emphasize the Indigenous role in Mexican culture. In 1949, the government made the last Aztec emperor, Cuauhtémoc << kwow TEHM ohk >>, the symbol of Mexican nationality. Cuauhtémoc faced the Spanish invaders so bravely that he became a Mexican hero.

Manufacturing, agriculture, mining, and tourism are all important to Mexico’s economy. Leading manufactured products include airplane parts, automobiles, chemicals, and processed foods. Cropland covers a small amount of Mexico’s area. The rest of the land is too dry, too mountainous, or otherwise unsuitable for crops. However, Mexico is one of the world’s leading producers of cacao beans (from which chocolate is made), coffee, corn, oranges, and sugar cane.

Mexico is rich in minerals. It is one of the leading producers of silver in the world and also has large deposits of copper, gold, lead, salt, and sulfur. Mexico became the world’s leading oil exporter in 1921. In the 1970’s, after decades of low production, Mexico reemerged as a major exporter of petroleum products.

Since the late 1900’s, Mexican leaders have tried to develop the economy by fostering ties with other countries, particularly the United States. However, Mexico continues to face difficult economic and social problems, and a majority of its people still live in poverty.

Government

Mexico is a federal republic with an executive branch, a legislative branch, and a judicial branch. The executive branch, headed by a president, is the decision-making center of the government. It establishes government policies, proposes laws, and controls the distribution of federal tax revenues.

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Mexico's national anthem

Mexico has 31 states and 1 federal district. Each state has an elected governor and legislature. The Federal District is governed by the elected mayor of Mexico City. All Mexicans who are at least 18 years old can vote.

National government.

Mexico’s president has a significant role in the national government. All prominent political figures in the executive branch depend directly on the president for their jobs. The president appoints a cabinet that directs government operations. Important cabinet members include the secretary of government and the secretary of finance and public credit. The president also originates much legislation. Some presidents have introduced constitutional amendments to support their own policies.

The president is elected by the people to a six-year term and may serve only one term of office. If the president does not finish the term, the legislature chooses a temporary president to serve until a special or regular presidential election is held.

Mexico’s legislature is called the Congress. It consists of a Senate and a Chamber of Deputies. The Senate has 128 members who are elected to six-year terms. The Chamber of Deputies has 500 members elected to three-year terms. Three hundred of the deputies are elected from the country’s electoral districts. The remaining 200 seats are filled by deputies who do not represent a particular district. Members of Congress may serve multiple, but not consecutive, terms.

State and local government.

The people elect state governors to six-year terms and state legislators to three-year terms. The president may remove governors from office with the Senate’s approval. Each state is divided into municipios (townships). Each municipio has a president and a council elected to three-year terms. Less than 10 percent of all tax revenues go directly to state and local agencies. State agencies depend on the national government, and local authorities on state agencies, for funds to carry out public works projects.

Politics.

Mexico has a number of political parties. The most important include the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Institutional Revolutionary Party), also known as the PRI; the Partido Acción Nacional (National Action Party), or PAN; and the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (Party of the Democratic Revolution), or PRD. The PRI, established in 1929 as the Partido Nacional Revolucionario (National Revolutionary Party), dominated Mexican politics and government until the end of the 1900’s. In 2000, a non-PRI candidate was elected president for the first time in 71 years.

In the 2010’s, a new liberal party, the Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (National Regeneration Movement), known as MORENA, gained much support throughout Mexico.

Courts.

Mexico’s highest court at the federal level is the Supreme Court of Justice. The president appoints 11 members to the court with the approval of the Senate. The federal judicial system also includes hundreds of circuit and district courts. The highest court in each state is a Superior Court of Justice.

Mexico’s courts play a limited role. The courts rarely declare a law unconstitutional and generally support the president’s policies. Mexicans may use the courts to protect their individual rights through an amparo (protection) procedure. In amparo cases, the courts may decide that a law has resulted in unfair treatment and that an exception should be made. However, the law in question is not changed. Most Mexicans cannot afford to use the legal process.

Armed forces.

Mexico has an army and a smaller navy and air force. Mexican men are required to serve part-time for a year in the army after reaching the age of 18. The country also has a National Guard.

People

Population.

Mexico’s population has increased rapidly as a result of a traditionally high birth rate and a sharply reduced death rate. The reduced death rate is due in part to improved living conditions and expanded health services since the early 1950’s. Since 1980, the most rapid population growth has occurred in the states of Baja California, Baja California Sur, and Quintana Roo.

About half of the people of Mexico are under 25 years of age. The relatively young population and its high growth rate have placed tremendous pressure on such services as education, health care, and social security. The strain on basic services is especially serious in urban centers. Many cities lack adequate housing, drinking water, and public transportation.

The high rate of population growth has also contributed to a shortage of jobs in Mexico. Since the 1980’s, far more people have entered the labor force than have retired, and the economy has generally failed to create enough jobs. This situation has led to a high rate of unemployment. It has also stimulated increasing migration of Mexicans to the United States.

Ancestry.

The majority of Mexicans are mestizos. Their white ancestors were mostly Spaniards who came during and after the Spanish conquest of 1519 to 1521. Their Indigenous ancestors lived in Mexico when the Spaniards arrived. Some mestizos are also descended from Africans brought to colonial Mexico and enslaved. Being a mestizo is generally a matter of pride.

Indigenous people make up Mexico’s second largest population group. Being Indigenous in Mexico does not depend chiefly on ancestry. It is mostly a matter of lifestyle, language, and viewpoint. For example, Mexicans are considered Indigenous if they speak an Indigenous language or wear clothing typical of an Indigenous people. Such peoples include the Nahua of central Mexico; the Mixtec, mainly from Oaxaca state; and the Maya of southeast Mexico. In the heavily Indigenous south, Indigenous traditions influence mestizo ways of life.

Most of Mexico’s political, business, intellectual, and military leaders are mestizos, though white people remain influential. The people of Mexico also include some Asians of unmixed ancestry.

Language.

Almost all Mexicans speak Spanish, the official language of Mexico and most other Latin American countries. Many words used in the United States came from Mexico, including canyon, corral, desperado, lariat, lasso, macho, patio, politico, rodeo, and stampede.

Most Indigenous Mexicans speak Spanish along with their own ancient language, but millions of them primarily use their Indigenous language in daily life. Altogether, they speak more than 60 Indigenous languages and dialects. Major Indigenous languages include Maya, Mixtec, Nahuatl, Otomí, Tarascan, and Zapotec.

Way of life

The way of life in Mexico includes many traditions from the nation’s long Indigenous past and the Spanish colonial period. But Mexico changed rapidly in the 1900’s. In many ways, life in its larger cities has become similar to that in the neighboring United States. Mexican villagers follow the older way of life more than urban Mexicans do. Even in the villages, however, government programs are doing much to modernize people’s lives. Schools, health clinics, roads, electric power and running water, and government-sponsored television are bringing people in small towns into mainstream Mexican life.

Mexican households have four or five people on average. It is common for several generations to live together. Many urban women have jobs. Women in farming areas often help cultivate the fields. Mexican girls have less personal freedom than girls do in Canada and the United States. Farm boys work in the fields, and many youths in the cities have part-time or full-time jobs.

City life.

The most urban areas of Mexico include the metropolitan areas of Mexico City and Guadalajara and the states of Nuevo León and Baja California. Mexico City, the country’s capital, has about 9 million people. The city’s metropolitan area has a population of over 20 million (see City (table: The 100 largest urban centers in the world)). Nine other Mexican cities have more than 1 million people. These cities are, in order of size, Tijuana, Ecatepec, León, Puebla, Juárez, Guadalajara, Zapopan, Monterrey, and Netzahualcóyotl.

Many Mexican cities and towns began as Indigenous communities. After the Spaniards arrived, they built cities with traditional European layouts. Each city had a major church and government buildings surrounding a plaza (public square). The plaza is still the center of city life in Mexico, even in large cities. In the evenings and on Sunday afternoons, people gather in the plaza to socialize or listen to music.

The city centers are filled with high-rise buildings, and modern houses and apartment buildings occupy the suburbs. Older parts of towns and cities have rows of homes built in the Spanish colonial style. Most of these houses are made of stone or adobe (sun-dried clay) brick. Small balconies extend from some windows. A Spanish-style house also has a patio (courtyard), which is the center of family life. This gardenlike area may have a fountain, flowers, vines, and pots of blooming plants.

Mexican cities have grown as people have moved from rural areas to find jobs and a better life. As a result, many cities suffer from serious social and environmental problems. Houses in many of the poor sections are made of scraps of wood, metal, and other found materials. Most of them lack electric power and running water. The large number of automobiles results in frequent traffic jams. Air pollution in Mexico City causes many people to suffer from respiratory and eye diseases.

Many people who migrate to cities have no regular jobs. Others do not earn enough to support themselves. Entire families must work, sometimes at two or three jobs, to survive. Many unskilled people find jobs as construction workers, street cleaners, or street vendors. Others make a living by washing clothes or cleaning homes. After they have lived in a city for a while, many of the poor find higher-paying jobs in factories.

Rural life.

About 1 out of every 5 Mexicans lives on a farm or in a small village. Most farmers live near their fields. The villages are poor, with little access to such basic social services as health care and education. Most young people leave their villages to find work in Mexican cities and towns or in the United States.

Village homes stand along simple dirt or cobblestone roads. In most villages, a Roman Catholic church rises on one side of the plaza, which forms the center of the community. Shops and government buildings line the plaza’s other sides.

Almost every village, and every city and town, has a marketplace. Going to market is one of the chief activities of people in farming areas. They generally spend one day each week there, doing business and chatting with friends. The people bring clothes, food, and other goods that they wish to sell or trade. They display them in rented stalls or spread them on the ground. Farmers often trade their goods instead of selling them, and much bargaining takes place.

The shape and style of village houses vary according to the climate. People on the dry central plateau build homes of adobe, brick, cement block, or stone, with flat roofs made of red tile, sheet metal, or straw. Some of these houses have only one room, a dirt floor, and few or no windows. The kitchen may be a structure called a lean-to, built of poles and cornstalks placed against an outside wall. If a house does not have a lean-to kitchen, the family may build a cooking fire on the floor.

In areas of heavy rainfall, many houses have walls built of poles coated with lime and clay. This mixture lasts longer than adobe does in the rain. The houses have sloping roofs that allow rain to run off easily. Some Indigenous people in southern Mexico build round houses. In Yucatán, most village houses are rectangular with rounded ends. The roofs are made of palm leaves.

Most Indigenous people live in villages in central and southern Mexico and the Yucatán Peninsula and are poor. Dishonest outsiders, both Mexican and foreign, have treated them unfairly, sometimes taking their land, exploiting them for cheap labor, or charging them higher prices for goods and services. As a result, conflicts have occurred between Indigenous communities and their wealthier neighbors.

Food and drink.

Thousands of years ago, the Indigenous inhabitants of what is now Mexico discovered how to grow corn. It became their most important food. Today, corn is still the chief food of most Mexicans, especially in rural areas. Mexican cooks generally soften the corn before cooking by soaking it in a mild chemical solution called limewater. Then they boil the corn and grind it into meal.

The main corn-meal food is the tortilla, which is a thin, flat bread shaped by hand or machine and cooked on an ungreased griddle. Tortillas also can be made with wheat flour. The tortilla is the bread of most Mexicans. They eat tortillas plain or as part of tacos (folded tortillas filled with chopped meat or cheese, then sometimes fried), enchiladas (rolled-up tortillas filled with chopped meat or cheese and covered with red chili sauce), or tostadas (fried corn tortillas served flat with meat, cheese, beans, lettuce, and onions). In northern Mexico, wheat tortillas are more common. A burrito is a large wheat-flour tortilla filled with such ingredients as cheese, beans, vegetables, rice, and hot sauce.

Many Mexicans eat frijoles (beans) that are boiled and mashed, then fried and refried in lard. Poorer Mexicans may eat frijoles every day, often using a folded tortilla to scoop them up. Rice is also boiled and then fried. Other popular foods include atole (a thick, soupy corn-meal dish) and tamales (corn meal steamed in corn husks or banana leaves and usually filled with pork or chicken). Most Mexicans like their food highly seasoned with chili pepper or other hot peppers. Turkey is a popular holiday dish. It is often served with mole sauce made of chocolate, chili, sesame seeds, and spices.

Poorer families eat little meat because they cannot afford it. They may vary their basic diet of corn and beans with fruit, honey, onions, tomatoes, squash, or sweet potatoes. Favorite fruits include avocados, bananas, mangoes, oranges, and papayas. The fruit and leaves of the prickly pear cactus are eaten boiled, fried, or stewed. Wealthier Mexicans have a more balanced diet.

Popular beverages in Mexico include water flavored with fruit juice and cinnamon-flavored hot chocolate beaten into foam. Mexicans also drink coffee, milk, and mineral water, and they are especially fond of soft drinks. Alcoholic beverages include beer and wine as well as two popular distilled liquors called mescal and tequila, both made from the juice of the maguey plant.

Clothing.

Urban Mexicans wear clothing like that worn in the United States and Canada. Villagers wear simple clothes that vary according to region and climate. The designs of these clothes date back centuries. In central and southern Mexico, men generally wear plain cotton shirts and trousers and leather sandals called huaraches. Wide-brimmed felt or straw hats called sombreros protect them from the hot sun. During cold or rainy weather, they may wear ponchos (blankets with a slit in the center for the head). At night, they may wrap themselves in colorful serapes, which are blankets carried over one shoulder during the day. Village women wear blouses and long, full skirts. They usually go barefoot or wear sandals. The women cover their heads with fringed shawls called rebozos. A mother may tie her baby to her back with a rebozo.

Some clothing worn by villagers is homemade. Hand weaving is an ancient Indigenous art, and many Indigenous communities are famous for their beautiful home-woven fabrics. Styles of weaving vary throughout Mexico, and the colors and design of a poncho or serape can show where it came from. For example, blankets with a striped rainbow pattern come from the Saltillo area in northern Mexico.

Some Indigenous people wear distinctive clothing. In Oaxaca state, Indigenous people wear large capes made of straw. On holidays, Indigenous women on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec wear a wide, white, lacy headdress called a huipil grande. In Yucatán, Maya women wear long, loose, white dresses that are embroidered around the neck and the bottom hem.

Mexicans sometimes wear national costumes on special occasions. The men’s national costumes include the dark blue charro suit, made of doeskin or velvet. It has a bolero (short jacket) and tight riding pants with gold or silver buttons down the sides. A flowing red bow tie, spurred boots, and a fancy white sombrero complete the costume. The best-known women’s costume is probably the china poblana. It is usually worn for the jarabe tapatío, also known as the Mexican hat dance. According to legend, the china poblana was named for a Chinese princess of the 1600’s who was kidnapped by pirates and sold to a merchant of Puebla. It consists of a full red-and-green skirt with beads and other ornaments, a colorfully embroidered short-sleeved blouse, and a brightly colored sash.

Holidays.

Mexicans celebrate their Independence Day, September 16, and other holidays with colorful fiestas (festivals). Every city, town, and village holds a yearly fiesta to honor its patron saint. Most fiestas begin before dawn with ringing bells and a shower of fireworks. During the fiestas, the people pray and burn candles to their saints in churches decorated with flowers and paper garlands. They dance, gamble, hold parades, and buy refreshments in the marketplace and public square. Folk dances are an important feature of fiestas. In the Mexican hat dance, dancers perform a lively sequence with hopping steps and heel-and-toe tapping.

In smaller towns and villages, cockfights and amateur bullfights also take place during fiestas. In larger towns and cities, most fiestas include less religious worship than do the village fiestas. The people watch plays and professional bullfights, ride merry-go-rounds and Ferris wheels, and buy goods at merchants’ booths.

Guadalupe Day, celebrated on December 12, is Mexico’s most important religious holiday. It honors Our Lady of Guadalupe (often called the Virgin of Guadalupe), Mexico’s patron saint. Catholics believe that on Dec. 12, 1531, the Virgin appeared to an Indigenous peasant on Tepeyac Hill, in what is now Mexico City.

On the nine nights before Christmas, friends and neighbors gather to act out Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem. This activity is called the posada. Each night after the posada, the children play the piñata game. Piñatas are containers made of earthenware or papier-mâché. Many are shaped like animals and filled with candy and toys. A piñata is hung above the children’s heads. The youngsters are blindfolded and take turns striking the piñata with a stick. After it breaks, the children scramble to collect the scattered presents. On Twelfth Night, 12 days after Christmas, parents fill their children’s shoes with presents.

Other important holidays include New Year’s Day (January 1); Constitution Day (February 5); Holy Week (the week before Easter); Cinco de Mayo (May 5); Día de los muertos (November 2); and Revolution Day, the anniversary of the Mexican Revolution of 1910 (November 20).

Recreation.

Soccer is the most popular sport in Mexico, followed by baseball. People often play soccer or baseball on vacant lots, and many play on teams in amateur leagues. Mexico also has professional soccer and baseball leagues. Basketball and jai alai, a game that resembles handball, are popular as well.

Many Mexicans enjoy watching bullfights. Most large cities have bull rings. Mexico City has the largest bull ring in the world. It seats about 55,000 people.

On Sundays—the only day most Mexicans do not work—many families go to the park to relax and picnic. Mexicans also enjoy watching movies and television, dancing at nightclubs, and entertaining friends and relatives at home. Many wealthier Mexicans visit the country’s historic sites and resorts along the coast.

Religion.

More than three-fourths of Mexico’s people belong to the Roman Catholic Church. Mexico also has some Protestants, Jews, and other religious groups. Loading the player...
Religious holiday procession in Mexico

Catholic missionaries first arrived from Spain in the early 1500’s. They converted millions of Indigenous people to Catholicism. But respect for the rain, sun, and other forces of nature remained an important part of Indigenous religion. Mexican religious practices still combine ancient beliefs and traditions with Catholicism.

During the Spanish colonial period, the Catholic Church was closely linked with the Mexican government as the official state church. The church became wealthy and powerful and prohibited other religions. Beginning in the mid-1800’s, the government greatly reduced the church’s political and economic power by prohibiting churches from owning property and participating in politics. However, these laws were not always enforced. In 1991, Mexico’s legislature passed constitutional amendments to end some of these restrictions.

Since the mid-1900’s, the number of Protestant churches in Mexico has increased greatly. The growth of Protestantism has resulted in large part from missionary activities by Protestants from the United States.

Education.

Throughout the Spanish colonial period, the Catholic Church controlled education in what is now Mexico. During the 1800’s, the newly independent government and the church struggled for power, and the government won control of the schools. Mexico’s Constitution, adopted in 1917, prohibited religious groups and ministers from establishing or teaching in schools. However, the laws often were not enforced. Constitutional changes passed in 1991 legalized church-owned schools and religious instruction in them.

During the early 1900’s, less than 25 percent of Mexicans over 6 years old could read or write. Since the Revolution of 1910, and especially since the early 1940’s, the government has done much to promote free public education. It has built thousands of new schools and established teachers’ colleges. The government spends large sums on education each year. Today, almost all Mexican adults can read and write.

Mexican law requires all children from the age of 6 through 14 to go to school. After kindergarten, a child has six years of elementary school, followed by three years of basic secondary school. Graduates of basic secondary school may go on to a three-year upper secondary school. Many upper secondary schools are privately run. Colleges operate some of these schools to prepare students for college work. Other upper secondary schools offer business and technical courses.

About 85 percent of school-age children in Mexico attend school. About 90 percent complete elementary school, and about 60 percent finish some secondary school. Few attend upper secondary school or college.

Courses of higher education at Mexico’s universities, specialized colleges, and technical institutes last from three to seven years. The oldest and largest Mexican university is the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City.

Arts

The arts have been an important part of Mexican life since the days of early Indigenous civilizations. The Maya and Toltec peoples constructed beautiful temples and painted murals (wallpaintings) in them. The Aztec composed music and poetry. The Spaniards brought a love of literature and beautiful buildings. Indigenous craftworkers built thousands of churches based on Spanish designs. In the 1900’s, Mexico produced many important architects, painters, composers, and writers.

Architecture

of ancient Mexican civilizations was related chiefly to religion. The Teotihuacano and Aztec, among others, built stone temples on flat-topped pyramids and decorated them with murals and sculptured symbols. These symbols represented the feathered serpent Quetzalcoatl and other gods. Many ancient structures still stand near Mexico City and in Oaxaca, Chiapas, and Yucatán states. See Pyramids (American pyramids).

After the Spanish conquest, the earliest mission churches had a simple design. Later churches, especially those built in the 1700’s, had a more ornamental style. The huge Metropolitan Cathedral in Mexico City, begun in 1573 but not completed for hundreds of years, shows the influence of many different architectural styles. In the 1900’s, many Mexican architects combined ancient designs with modern construction methods. Their work includes the buildings of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, by Félix Candela and Carlos Lazo, and the striking National Museum of Anthropology, in Mexico City, by Pedro Ramírez Vázquez. Some other examples are the Jardines de Pedregal apartment buildings, by Luis Barragán, and the 44-story Latin American Tower in Mexico City.

Painting.

Ancient Mexican civilizations left many impressive murals, like those at Bonampak in Chiapas state. During the Spanish colonial period, many artists painted murals in churches or portraits of government officials. Mexican painting gained worldwide renown after the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Beginning in the 1920’s, José Orozco, Diego Rivera, and David Siqueiros painted the story of the revolution on the walls of public buildings. Rivera’s wife, Frida Kahlo, is one of the best-known painters in Mexican history. Other important Mexican painters during the middle and later 1900’s included Rufino Tamayo and José Luis Cuevas. Beginning in the 1950’s, many Mexican painters turned away from revolutionary themes and followed international trends. See Painting (Modern Mexican painting).

Literature.

Outstanding colonial writers included the dramatist Juan Ruiz de Alarcón and the poet Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. In 1816, José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi wrote The Itching Parrot, probably the first Latin American novel. After 1910, revolutionary themes became important in novels by such writers as Mariano Azuela and Martín Luis Guzmán. These themes also appear in the works of such later writers as Carlos Fuentes, Juan Rulfo, and Agustín Yáñez. Leading Mexican poets of the 1900’s included Amado Nervo, Octavio Paz, Carlos Pellicer, Alfonso Reyes, and Marco Antonio Montes de Oca. The 1900’s also saw the emergence of important women writers, such as Rosario Castellanos and Ángeles Mastretta. Notable novelists of the late 1900’s and early 2000’s include Mario Bellatín, Yuri Herrera, Elmer Mendoza, and Guadalupe Nettel. See Latin American literature.

Music.

Early Indigenous people used drums, flutes, gourd rattles, seashells, and their voices to make music. This ancient music is still played in some parts of Mexico. Much church music was written during the colonial period. Folk songs called corridos have long been popular in Mexico. They may tell of the Mexican Revolution, a bandit or a sheriff, or the struggle between church and state. In the 1900’s, Mexican composers, including Carlos Chávez and Silvestre Revueltas, used themes from corridos or ancient Indigenous music. Loading the player...
Mexican mariachi music

Today, strolling musicians called mariachis perform along streets and in restaurants. Mariachi groups include singers and guitar, trumpet, and violin players. The music of marimbas (instruments similar to xylophones) is also popular.

Motion pictures.

Mexico has one of Latin America’s largest motion-picture industries. Some of the first movies produced in Mexico chronicled the violence of the 1910 revolution. The 1930’s and 1940’s are considered the golden age of Mexican cinema. The most famous Mexican actor of this period was Mario Moreno. Moreno’s comic character Cantinflas represented the average poor, urban Mexican. The Spanish-born director Luis Buñuel made many of his most important films in Mexico in the 1950’s and 1960’s, including Los Olvidados (The Young and the Damned, 1950).

In the 1960’s and 1970’s, Mexican filmmakers began making action and horror movies. One extremely popular action hero was El Santo, a professional free-style wrestler who starred in more than 50 films.

The 1990’s and early 2000’s brought the development of the Nuevo Cine Mexicano (New Mexican Cinema). Unlike older films, which were produced mainly for a Mexican audience, movies from the Nuevo Cine Mexicano have achieved global fame. Famous filmmakers from this period included Carlos Carrera, Alfonso Cuarón, Alejandro González Iñárritu, and Guillermo del Toro.

The land

Mexico has six main land regions: (1) the Pacific Northwest, (2) the Plateau of Mexico, (3) the Gulf Coastal Plain, (4) the Southern Uplands, (5) the Chiapas Highlands, and (6) the Yucatán Peninsula. Within these six land regions are many smaller ones that differ greatly in altitude, climate, and land formation. Many kinds of plants and animals also live in Mexico.

The Pacific Northwest

region is generally dry. The Baja California Peninsula (Peninsula of Lower California), the region’s westernmost section, consists largely of rolling or mountainous desert. During some years, the desert receives no rain at all. It has a few oases where farmers grow dates and grapes. The northwestern corner and southern end of the peninsula get enough rain for a little farming. The lowest point in Mexico is in the far northern area, near Mexicali. This area, 33 feet (10 meters) below sea level, is the southern end of the huge Imperial Valley of California.

The mainland coastal strip of the Pacific Northwest region has fertile river valleys that contain some of Mexico’s richest farmland. Farmers irrigate these valleys with water from the Colorado, Fuerte, Yaqui, and other rivers. Steep, narrow mountain ranges extend in a north-south direction in the state of Sonora, east of the coastal plain. The ranges lie parallel to each other and separate the upper river valleys. In these basins are cattle ranches, irrigated farmland, and copper and silver mines.

The Plateau of Mexico

is the largest of the six land regions. It has Mexico’s largest cities and most of the country’s people. The plateau consists of five sections.

The Cordillera Neo-Volcanica

(Neo-Volcanic Range), a series of volcanoes, extends across Mexico at the plateau’s southern edge. It is also called the Eje Neo-Volcánico Transversal (Transverse Neo-Volcanic Axis) or the Transverse Volcanic Range. Many of the volcanoes are active. The volcanic soils are fertile and receive enough rain for agriculture. Farmers have grown corn, beans, and other crops on the slopes since the days of ancient Indigenous civilizations. Pico de Orizaba (Citlaltépetl), at 18,410 feet (5,610 meters), is Mexico’s highest mountain. Ixtacihuatl and Popocatépetl, two volcanoes that stand more than 17,000 feet high (5,180 meters), rise southeast of Mexico City. Far to the west, near the city of Guadalajara, is Lake Chapala. It covers about 420 square miles (1,100 square kilometers). However, this figure varies with changes in rainfall and human consumption.

The Mesa Central

(Central Plateau), which lies north of the Neo-Volcanic Chain, is the heart of Mexico. It averages about 7,000 feet (2,100 meters) above sea level. The rainfall in this section is enough to raise corn, beans, wheat, and barley. The Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan stood at the mesa’s southern edge, in the beautiful Valley of Mexico. Mexico City was built on the same site and became the capital during the colonial period. Several small lakes, including the famous Lake Xochimilco, are in the Mexico City area.

The western part of the Mesa Central is called the Bajío, meaning flat. This region covers one of the most productive agricultural areas in the country. The Bajío also includes the manufacturing centers of Guadalajara, León, Querétaro, and San Luis Potosí.

The Mesa del Norte

(Northern Plateau) makes up more than half the Plateau of Mexico. It extends from the Mesa Central north to the United States. The Mesa del Norte is highest in the south and west, with altitudes of 6,000 to 9,000 feet (1,800 to 2,700 meters). In the north and east, it is less than 4,000 feet (1,200 meters) high. Low mountains rise from 2,000 to 3,000 feet (610 to 910 meters) above the mesa. The mesa receives little rainfall except in the higher mountains, where frost is a constant threat to crops. Only in irrigated places, such as the Saltillo and Torreón areas, is farming successful.

The mesa’s low mountains have rich deposits of metal ores. The Spaniards began developing these mines in the 1500’s. They also established huge ranches in the dry hills and plains nearby to supply the miners with beef, horses, and mules. In the Durango and Chihuahua areas, vaqueros (cowboys) became skilled at riding and roping cattle. American cowboys later copied these skills.

The Sierra Madre Occidental

is a long mountain range that forms the western rim of the Plateau of Mexico. Until the 1900’s, when paved roads and a railroad were built across the range, it was a natural barrier to transport between the plateau and the west coast. The range includes some of Mexico’s most rugged land. Short, steep streams flowing to the Pacific Ocean have cut canyons more than 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) deep through the mountains. The largest canyon is the spectacular Barranca del Cobre, cut by the Urique River.

The Sierra Madre Oriental,

the plateau’s eastern rim, is actually a series of mountain ranges. In many places between the ranges, highways and railroads climb up to the plateau from the east coast. Monterrey, near large deposits of coal and iron ore, is the major center of the Mexican steel industry. See Sierra Madre.

The Gulf Coastal Plain.

North of Tampico, this region is largely covered by tangled forests of low, thorny bushes and trees. This part of the plain is generally dry, and farming is possible only along rivers and with the aid of irrigation. South of Tampico, the rainfall increases. The plant life changes gradually from north to south and becomes a tropical rain forest in Tabasco state. The southern part of the plain has some rich farmland.

Many of Mexico’s longest rivers flow into the Gulf of Mexico from the coastal plain. They include the Rio Grande, which forms about 1,300 miles (2,090 kilometers) of Mexico’s border with the United States. Large petroleum deposits lie beneath the plain and offshore. Huge sulfur deposits occur near the Gulf in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The isthmus, which is about 135 miles (220 kilometers) wide, is the narrowest part of Mexico.

The Southern Uplands

consist largely of steep ridges and deep gorges cut by mountain streams. The region includes a large, hot, dry valley just south of the Neo-Volcanic Chain. The Balsas River drains the valley. The Sierra Madre del Sur, a rugged mountain range, rises southwest of the valley along the Pacific Ocean. The famous beach resort of Acapulco is on this coast. A little farming takes place on the steep mountainsides. The Oaxaca Plateau makes up the eastern part of the Southern Uplands. The ancient Zapotec capital of Monte Albán stood on the plateau. In addition, much of the gold of the Aztec empire probably came from the plateau.

The Chiapas Highlands

have great blocklike mountains that rise more than 9,000 feet (2,700 meters) above sea level. There are also many relatively flat surfaces at high altitudes. These tablelands are farmed by Indigenous people who speak Maya dialects and other ancient languages. Some modern farming has developed in the region’s deep, broad river valleys. With irrigation, farmers grow coffee, fruits, and other crops.

The Yucatán Peninsula

is a low limestone plateau with no rivers. Limestone dissolves in water, and rainfall reaches the sea through underground channels dissolved out of the rock. Great pits have formed where the roofs of these channels have fallen in. The pits were the sacred wells of the ancient Maya people. The northwestern part of the region is dry bushland. Agave plants that grow there provide henequen fiber, which is used to make twine. Rainfall increases to the south, where tropical rain forests cover the land. See Yucatán Peninsula.

Plant and animal life.

Forests cover about a third of Mexico. Forests of the northwestern and central mountains provide ebony, mahogany, rosewood, walnut, and other valuable hardwoods used to make furniture. Large pine forests in these mountains also supply timber for Mexico’s pulp and paper industry. Mexico has thousands of kinds of flowers, including azaleas, chrysanthemums, geraniums, orchids, and poinsettias. Hundreds of varieties of cactus grow in Mexico’s northern deserts.

Deer and mountain lions live in Mexico’s mountains. The country’s northern deserts have coyotes, lizards, prairie dogs, and rattlesnakes. Mexico also has some alligators, jaguars, opossums, and raccoons. Chihuahuas, the world’s smallest dogs, originally came from Mexico.

Mexico has hundreds of kinds of birds, including the beautifully colored quetzals of the southern forests. Other birds include flamingos, herons, hummingbirds, parrots, and pelicans. Fish and shellfish are plentiful in Mexico’s coastal waters, lakes, and rivers. Freshwater fish include bass, catfish, and trout. Many kinds of tropical fish inhabit coral reefs along the Caribbean coast of the Yucatán Peninsula. Marlin, swordfish, and tarpon are among the game fish caught in coastal areas.

Climate

Mexico’s climate varies sharply from region to region. These differences are greatest in tropical Mexico, south of the Tropic of Cancer. There, large variations in altitude result in three main temperature zones. The tierra caliente (hot land) includes regions up to 3,000 feet (910 meters) above sea level. It has long, hot summers and mild winters with no frost. The tierra templada (temperate land), from 3,000 to 6,000 feet (910 to 1,800 meters), has temperatures that generally stay between 80 and 50 °F (27 and 10 °C). Most crops can grow in the temperate zone. The tierra fria (cold land) lies above 6,000 feet (1,800 meters). Frost is rare up to 8,000 feet (2,400 meters), but it may occur at almost any time. The highest peaks in the tierra fria are always covered with snow.

In tropical regions of Mexico, most rain falls in summer, usually as short, heavy, afternoon showers. Toward the south, the rainy season starts earlier and lasts longer.

Most of the northern half of Mexico consists of deserts and semideserts. The lack of rainfall has limited agricultural development in the north. Only the mountainous sections receive enough rainfall to grow good crops without irrigation. Most of northern Mexico’s rainfall occurs during the summer, but northwestern Baja California receives most of its rainfall in the winter. Above 2,000 feet (610 meters), summer days are hot and nights are cool. During the winter, days are warm and nights are cold. The coastal lowlands are hot, except on the cool Pacific coast of Baja California.

Economy

Until the mid-1900’s, the Mexican economy was based mainly on agriculture and mining. In the 1940’s, the government began to promote the development of industry. Mexico now produces many of the manufactured goods that its people use. In the early 2000’s, however, Mexico lost many manufacturing jobs to China and other East Asian countries.

In the 1970’s, Mexico became a major exporter of oil to the United States. Income from oil production spurred the development of manufacturing and service industries. During the middle and late 1970’s, the price of oil was high. Mexico used its expected income from oil production as collateral to borrow money for many construction projects. In 1981, however, the price of oil began to fall. Mexico soon found it difficult to repay its loans, and the government had to cut spending severely. The economy declined, and many Mexicans lost their jobs. In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, the economy improved because the government sold off state-owned companies, attracted foreign investment, and controlled inflation.

Since the mid-1990’s, the Mexican economy generally has struggled against global competition. Remittances (money sent) from relatives in the United States have been an important source of national income. Mexicans living in the United States send home billions of dollars to their families each year.

Service industries

are those economic activities that produce services, not goods. Service industries account for about two-thirds of both the total value of goods and services produced in Mexico and the country’s workers. Trade, restaurants, and hotels make up one of the leading service industries. Hotels, restaurants, and shops benefit from the tens of millions of tourists who visit Mexico each year. Many people also work for the government and in schools.

Manufacturing.

Mexico City is Mexico’s leading industrial center. Guadalajara and Monterrey are also important manufacturing centers. Government programs encourage the spread of industry to other areas.

Since the 1980’s, the government has promoted industrial growth aimed at supplying foreign markets. Factories called maquiladoras near Mexico’s northern border manufacture and assemble a variety of products for export to U.S. companies. These products include automobile parts, electronic equipment, and textiles.

Mexico’s leading products include airplane parts, automobiles, chemicals, electronics, processed foods, and processed petroleum. Other important products include beer, clothing, medical devices, plastics, steel, and textiles.

Mexico has long been famous for the skill of its craftworkers, who follow beautiful Indigenous or Spanish-colonial designs. Their products, which vary by area, include silver jewelry from Taxco, glassware and pottery from Guadalajara and Puebla, and handwoven baskets and blankets from Oaxaca and Toluca. Many of these goods are sold to tourists.

Agriculture.

The various farming regions of Mexico differ greatly in altitude, rainfall, and temperature. As a result, many kinds of crops can grow. However, mountains and insufficient rainfall make most of the country naturally unsuited for agriculture. Crops are grown on only a small amount of Mexico’s total land area.

The best farmland is in the southern part of Mexico’s plateau region. Rich soils, rainfall, and a mild climate there permit intensive cultivation. The northern part of the plateau has little rainfall and serves mainly as grazing land for cattle.

Fertile soils exist in the rainy, hot regions of southern and eastern Mexico and in the eastern coastal plains. However, turning these areas into productive farmland requires much work, including clearing and draining the land and controlling floods, insects, and plant diseases. The west coast of Mexico also has fertile soils, but much of the land is mountainous and dry. Irrigation has developed some rich cropland in dry regions.

Among the wide variety of crops grown in Mexico, corn takes up more farmland than any other crop. It is the basic food of the Mexican people. Other major crops include avocados, bananas, beans, chili peppers, coffee, cotton, lemons, mangoes, onions, oranges, pineapples, potatoes, sorghum, strawberries, sugar cane, tomatoes, and wheat. Mexico exports many tropical fruits and winter vegetables to the United States. Farmers cultivate vanilla and cacao in tropical wet areas of the country.

Farmers and ranchers raise livestock throughout Mexico. Beef and dairy cattle are found chiefly in northern and central Mexico. Farmers throughout the country also raise chickens, goats, hogs, horses, sheep, and turkeys.

Until the 1900’s, most Mexicans made a living by farming land near their villages or working on large estates called haciendas for wealthy landowners. The Mexican Constitution of 1917 provided for land reform. By 1964, the government had broken up most of the haciendas and distributed the land to the peasants.

The Constitution also recognized the old system of ejidos << eh HEE dohs >>, farmlands held in common by communities. Today, most farmers work alone on individual sections of the ejidos. However, some work the land as a group and share the crops. Ejidos make up much of Mexico’s total cropland. The remainder is divided between small family farms and large haciendas that the Mexican government has not broken up. Since the 1990’s, the ejido system has fallen into crisis. The owners of many ejidos have sold or abandoned their land to look for work in Mexican cities or in the United States.

Agriculture provides about 10 percent of all jobs in Mexico, but it accounts for less than 5 percent of the total value of Mexican goods and services. The government has tried to increase agricultural production by promoting modern farming methods. However, educational programs, financial aid, and public works projects intended to achieve this goal have not benefited most small family farmers and those living on ejidos. As a result, Mexico has some modern and productive commercial farms owned by prosperous people, but most rural Mexicans are poor.

Mining.

A wide variety of minerals are mined in Mexico. The country ranks as one of the world’s leading silver producers, mining about one-fourth of the world’s annual production. Most silver mines are in the central regions of the country.

Mexico is also an important producer of petroleum. It pumps hundreds of millions barrels of petroleum each year. Oil wells operate chiefly in the states of Campeche, Tabasco, and Veracruz, along the coast and in the Gulf of Mexico. In addition, Mexico produces much natural gas. Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), is Mexico’s government-run oil and gas company.

Mexico mines large quantities of bismuth, copper, fluorite, gold, gypsum, lead, manganese, molybdenum, salt, sulfur, and zinc. Large iron ore deposits support the nation’s steel industry.

Fishing.

Although Mexico has an extensive coastline, fishing accounts for less than 1 percent of the national income. Fishing crews catch anchovies, herring, sardines, tilapias, and tuna. Aquaculture, the commercial raising of plants and animals that live in water, is a growing industry in Mexico. Mexico’s aquaculture industry raises shrimp and tilapias.

Energy sources.

Petroleum deposits provide cheap fuel oil and natural gas for industrial use. Coal, natural gas, and petroleum generate the vast majority of Mexico’s electric power. Most of the rest is produced by hydroelectric or nuclear power. Manuel M. Torres Dam, Mexico’s largest hydroelectric plant and one of the world’s highest dams, is on the Grijalva River in the state of Chiapas. Laguna Verde, Mexico’s only nuclear power plant, is in the state of Veracruz. The government handles almost all power production and distribution.

Trade.

Crude petroleum is one of Mexico’s leading exports. Other mineral exports include copper, gold, iron, and silver. The main industrial exports include automobiles and automobile parts, electronics, food and beverages, machinery, and medical devices. The leading imports include industrial machinery, motor vehicle parts, and petroleum products.

About three-fifths of Mexico’s trade is with the United States, but trade with European countries, China, and Japan is increasing. Mexico has a trade surplus with the United States, and a trade deficit with the rest of the world.

Trade with other Latin American countries is relatively unimportant. However, Mexico is trying to increase such trade through the Latin American Integration Association, an economic union of Mexico and several other Latin American nations. Mexico also belongs to a regional trading bloc that includes Canada and the United States. This bloc was created by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which eliminated tariffs (taxes on imports) and other trade barriers between the three nations.

Tourism.

Along with exports of manufactured goods and petroleum, tourism serves as one of Mexico’s largest sources of income from abroad. Each year, tens of millions of tourists, mostly from the United States, visit Mexico. The tourist industry is also a major source of employment for the Mexican population. Tourists visit Mexico City, the old Spanish colonial cities of central Mexico, and the ruins of Maya cities on the Yucatán Peninsula. Beautiful beach resorts attract many vacationers from the United States and Canada, especially in winter. Popular resort areas include Acapulco, Cabo San Lucas, Ensenada, Huatulco, Manzanillo, Mazatlán, Puerto Escondido, Puerto Vallarta, and Zihuatanejo on the Pacific coast, and Cancún and Cozumel Island on the Caribbean coast.

Transportation

in Mexico ranges from modern methods to ancient ones. Mexico has a good highway system. Airlines, bus service, and railroads connect all the major cities and towns. But some farmers still carry goods to market on their heads and backs, or by burros and oxcarts.

Mexico City is an important center of international air travel. There are also large international airports in Cancún, Guadalajara, and Monterrey.

Mexico has an extensive railway network. The railroads were owned by the government until the 1990’s, when they were sold to private companies. Mexico City has a subway system.

More than 100 ocean ports provide access to Mexico. These include Altamira, Coatzacoalcos, and Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico, and Lázaro Cárdenas and Manzanillo on the Pacific Ocean. Mexico also has a small merchant fleet.

Communication.

The first book known to be published in the Western Hemisphere was a catechism (book used to teach religion) printed in Mexico City in 1539. Today, books and magazines published in Mexico City are read widely throughout Mexico and all of Latin America. Mexico has many daily newspapers representing a variety of political opinions. The largest newspapers include El Financiero, El Sol de México, El Universal, Excélsior, La Jornada, La Prensa, and Reforma, all published in Mexico City.

Mexico has hundreds of television stations and radio stations. Most of these stations are privately owned. Telephone lines connect all parts of the country. Many people use cellular phones. Internet usage is increasing as more Mexicans gain access to computers.

History

Ancient times.

The first people who lived in what is now Mexico arrived there before 8000 B.C. They were peoples of unknown tribes who migrated from the north. These first Mexicans were hunters who lived in small, temporary communities. They followed the herds of buffalo, mammoths, mastodons, and other large animals that roamed the land. About 7500 B.C., the climate became drier. The herds could not find enough grass to eat and died off. The people then lived on small wild animals or the berries and seeds of wild plants.

About 7000 B.C., the inhabitants of what is now the Puebla region discovered how to grow plants for food and became farmers. They grew corn, which became their most important food, and avocados, beans, peppers, squashes, and tomatoes. They were among the first people to cultivate these vegetables. They also raised dogs and turkeys for food. As the wandering bands of hunters became groups of farmers, they established permanent settlements.

The growth of villages.

By 2000 B.C., large farm villages stood along Lake Texcoco in the fertile south-central Valley of Mexico, and in the southern highlands and forests. The farmers used irrigation to improve their crops. The villages grew, and new classes of people developed, including potters, priests, and weavers. The people traded polished stones, pottery, and seashells with distant communities.

By 1000 B.C., the villagers were building flat-topped pyramids with temples on them. Some villages, including Cuicuilco near what is now Mexico City, became religious centers. Members of other communities came to worship in the temples. Because these people were farmers, they worshiped gods that represented such natural forces as the rain and the sun. The villages grew into towns, from the Valley of Mexico to the Gulf of Mexico and to the Pacific Ocean, and south to what is now Guatemala.

The Olmec people of the southern Gulf Coast made the first great advance toward civilization in the Mexico region. Between about 1200 and 400 B.C., the Olmec developed a counting system and calendar. They also carved beautiful stone statues.

The Classic Period.

Great civilizations thrived between A.D. 250 and 900, the Classic Period of Mexico. Huge pyramids dedicated to the sun and the moon were built at Teotihuacán, near what is now Mexico City. In the religious centers of southern Mexico and northern Central America, the Maya built beautiful homes, pyramids, and temples of limestone. They recorded important dates on tall, carved blocks of stone and wrote in a kind of picture writing. In what is now the state of Oaxaca, the Zapotec people leveled a mountaintop and built their capital, called Monte Albán.

The reasons for the fall of these Classic civilizations are not clear. The climate probably became even drier about A.D. 900, and the people could not produce enough crops to feed the large population. Perhaps city dwellers attacked their neighbors to get more land, or farmers revolted against the priests who had ruled them. In the north, Chichimec tribes destroyed a large number of cities.

The Toltec and the Aztec.

Many wars followed the Classic Period. During the 900’s, the Toltec people established an empire with a major city at Tula, north of present-day Mexico City. Toltec influence spread throughout central and southern Mexico. Invading Chichimec tribes destroyed the Toltec empire about 1200.

The Aztec (also called the Mexica) built the last and greatest Indigenous empire during the mid-1400’s. The Aztec empire extended between the Pacific and Gulf coasts, and from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec north to the Pánuco River. The Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, stood on an island in Lake Texcoco at the site of Mexico City. According to Aztec tradition, Tenochtitlan was founded in 1325. Modern scholars believe it was founded somewhat later. When the Spaniards arrived in 1519, the city and its suburbs had a population of about 200,000.

The Aztec were fierce warriors who believed it was their duty to sacrifice the men they captured in battle to their gods. Every year they sacrificed thousands of prisoners of war. The Aztec also composed beautiful music and poetry and were skilled in medicine. They grew rich with gold, silver, and other treasures collected annually from the cities and tribes they conquered.

The Spanish conquest.

The Spaniards began to occupy the Caribbean region during the 1490’s and first set foot in Mexico in 1517. That year, Diego Velázquez, the governor of Cuba, sent ships under Francisco Fernández de Córdoba to explore and search for treasure. Córdoba found the Yucatán Peninsula and brought back reports of large cities. Velázquez then sent Juan de Grijalva to the area in 1518. Grijalva explored the Gulf coast from Yucatán to what is now Veracruz.

A third expedition of about 600 men sailed from Cuba under Hernán Cortés in February 1519. Cortés’s 11 ships followed Grijalva’s route along the coast. Cortés defeated large Indigenous armies with his horses and cannons. He founded Veracruz, the first Spanish settlement in what is now Mexico.

Reports of the explorers reached the Aztec emperor Montezuma II (also spelled Moctezuma) in Tenochtitlan. The tales of Spanish guns and horses—which the Indigenous people had never seen before—and of soldiers in armor made him fear the Spaniards. Montezuma sent messengers with rich gifts for Cortés, but he also ordered the Spanish explorer to leave. Instead, Cortés marched toward Tenochtitlan. He was joined by thousands of the Aztec’s Indigenous enemies, who hoped he would destroy Montezuma’s empire. Montezuma allowed the invaders to enter Tenochtitlan in November 1519. The Spaniards were far too few to control Tenochtitlan by themselves. However, Cortés soon seized Montezuma and held him hostage to secure his own men’s safety.

In June 1520, the Aztec revolted. After a week of bitter fighting, the Spaniards tried to sneak out of the city. The Aztec discovered them and killed hundreds of Spaniards during la noche triste (the sad night). The rest, including Cortés, were saved by their Indigenous allies. Six months later, Cortés returned to the Tenochtitlan area at the head of an invading force that included tens of thousands of Indigenous troops. By May 1521, this coalition had surrounded the Aztec capital and cut off the city’s food and water. Battles, sickness, and starvation weakened the Aztec army. In August, Cuauhtémoc, the last emperor, surrendered the city. Cortés sent soldiers to take over the rest of the Aztec empire. Some Indigenous people resisted, but most accepted Spanish rule without a fight.

Spanish rule.

After the fighting ended, the Spaniards faced the problem of how to govern the large number of people in the colony. To keep the Indigenous people from revolting, King Charles I of Spain allowed them to speak their own languages and be governed by their own officials. However, they had to pay a special tax called a tribute and work for the Spaniards when help was needed. They were also required to convert to Catholicism.

Tenochtitlan and other Indigenous cities became Spanish cities ruled by white people. The Spaniards destroyed Tenochtitlan and built their own new city on top of the ruins. The Europeans unknowingly introduced a number of diseases to the Indigenous population. Along with harsh labor conditions and the forced resettlement of many Indigenous communities, these diseases caused a great decline in the Indigenous population. When the Spaniards arrived, there may have been from 15 million to 25 million Indigenous people living in Mexico. Between 1519 and 1600, the Indigenous population dropped to approximately 1 million.

The arrival of Europeans and, later, Africans in Mexico led to the emergence of a new, racially mixed society. The white people included peninsulares (individuals born in Spain) and creoles (individuals of European descent born in America). The creoles and mestizos considered themselves superior to the Indigenous people. From 1520 to 1810, the Spaniards brought about 200,000 Africans to Mexico and enslaved them. Most were brought to Mexico, then part of the colony called New Spain, before 1700.

During the 1540’s, the Spaniards discovered silver mines in the north-central part of their colony. The silver brought much wealth to the creoles and peninsulares, and the mines attracted more Spanish immigrants. The creoles used the power of the royal government to make the Indigenous people work for them. They established haciendas, where they produced food and clothing for the new mining communities. Some Indigenous peasants lived on the haciendas. Others lived there when they had work and lived in their own villages the rest of the time.

The Indigenous people were poor, but there was little they could do to change their situation. However, they were allowed to live separately according to their customs. As a result, the houses they lived in, the food they ate, and the way they worked changed little over the nearly 300 years of Spanish rule. Spanish laws gave the Indigenous people the right to keep the lands they had owned before the conquest, but greedy landowners found ways to take over these lands. The Indigenous people blended the Roman Catholic faith with their own culture and respected their Spanish priests. However, the colonial period included several riots and rebellions that demonstrated Indigenous discontent with Spanish rule.

At first, the creoles were content to be ruled by Spain because the king was far away and he usually permitted them to govern themselves. Authorities in Spain made the laws, but few Spanish officials worked in New Spain. The officials could not enforce the laws if the creoles objected. In the late 1700’s, King Charles III tried to reorganize the colonial government, giving more power to Spanish-born individuals and less to the creoles. He also raised taxes. Few creoles sought independence, but many wanted more control of their affairs.

Revolt against the Spaniards.

In 1807, French forces occupied Spain and imprisoned King Ferdinand VII. Confusion spread in Spain’s colonies. Some creoles plotted to seize Mexico’s colonial government. One such person was Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a priest from what is now Guanajuato state. In the early hours of Sept. 16, 1810, he called Indigenous people and mestizos to his church in the town of Dolores. He made a speech known as the Grito de Dolores (Cry of Dolores), in which he called for a rebellion against Spanish rule. Today, late on September 15, Mexico’s president rings a bell and repeats the Grito de Dolores. Mexicans celebrate September 16 as Independence Day.

Hidalgo’s untrained followers armed themselves and attacked Spanish officials and those who supported the Spaniards. At first, Hidalgo gained support for his cause. However, most of his followers were Indigenous and mestizo rather than creole. Some Indigenous communities refused to support the rebels because of their violent ways. Eventually, Hidalgo was forced to retreat. Spanish troops captured and executed him in 1811.

José María Morelos y Pavón, another priest, continued Hidalgo’s struggle. In 1813, Morelos held a Congress that issued the first formal call for independence. The Congress wrote a constitution for a Mexican republic that included many social reforms to benefit mestizo and Indigenous people. Unlike Hidalgo, Morelos used ambush tactics against small, isolated Spanish military units. His campaign was more successful than Hidalgo’s, but he also was captured and executed in 1815. By 1816, Spanish troops had captured or killed many of the rebels, but small guerrilla groups continued to operate in the countryside.

King Ferdinand VII had returned to the Spanish throne in 1814. In an effort to help Spain recover from the Napoleonic Wars, he taxed the creoles. He also organized a large army to put down any revolutionary movement. Ferdinand’s actions convinced many creoles that they could no longer trust Spain.

Independence.

In 1820, a revolt by political liberals swept Spain. Ferdinand’s power weakened, and many creoles saw their chance for independence. A group of powerful creoles supported Agustín de Iturbide, who had served in the Spanish army in the war against José María Morelos y Pavón. Iturbide had been given command of a Spanish army to crush the last rebel leader, Vicente Guerrero. But instead of fighting Guerrero, Iturbide met with him peacefully. In February 1821, the two leaders agreed to make Mexico independent. They joined their armies and won the support of liberal and conservative creoles. Only a small portion of the Spanish forces in Mexico remained loyal to Spain. By the end of 1821, the last Spanish officials withdrew from Mexico, and Mexico became independent.

Following independence, the creoles could not agree on a form of government. Conservatives called for a monarchy, but liberals wanted a republic. The conservatives could not persuade a member of the Spanish royal family to be king. Iturbide, who had the backing of the army, became Emperor Agustín I in 1822. Iturbide was a poor ruler, and most groups turned against him. In 1823, a military revolt drove him from power.

Mexico’s Congress then followed the wishes of the liberals and began to write a constitution for a federal republic. But the creoles still disagreed on how the constitution should be written. Conservatives desired a strong central government and wanted Roman Catholicism to be the national religion, as it had been under Spanish rule. Liberals wanted the central government to have less power and the states more, and they called for freedom of religion. The groups finally reached a compromise, though many conservative creoles did not support it. In 1824, Mexico became a republic with a president and a two-house Congress heading the national government, and governors and legislatures heading the states. Guadalupe Victoria, a follower of Hidalgo and Morelos, became the first president.

Difficulties of the early republic.

The mid-1800’s were a difficult period in Mexico. Many creoles did not support the Constitution, and Mexicans had little experience in self-government. Military men often revolted. One such man, General Antonio López de Santa Anna, served as president 11 times between 1833 and 1855. Santa Anna was elected president in 1833, but he soon tired of his duties and left the government in the hands of his vice president, Valentín Gómez Farías. Gómez Farías passed many reforms that lessened the influence of the church and the military. Although Santa Anna had long favored liberal policies, he joined with conservatives in a successful revolt against the government in 1834. He soon took over the country as a dictator.

Texas was then part of Mexico, but many people from the United States lived there. When Santa Anna changed the Constitution in 1836 to concentrate greater power in the central government, Mexicans and Americans in Texas revolted. Santa Anna defeated a Texas force in the Battle of the Alamo at San Antonio in 1836. But later that year, Texas forces defeated Santa Anna’s army at San Jacinto and captured him. Santa Anna signed a treaty recognizing the independence of Texas. In addition to what is now the state of Texas, the new republic of Texas included parts of present-day Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Wyoming.

The Mexican government did not recognize Santa Anna’s treaty. Texas joined the United States in 1845, but Mexico still claimed it. Border disputes developed between Mexico and the United States. In April 1846, Mexican troops attacked U.S. soldiers who had entered the disputed area. In May, the United States declared war on Mexico.

United States soldiers occupied what was then Mexican territory in Arizona, California, and New Mexico. In February 1847, U.S. General Zachary Taylor fought Santa Anna, who was president again, at the Battle of Buena Vista near Saltillo, Mexico. Both sides claimed victory. Taylor became a national hero in the United States and was elected president the next year. Other U.S. forces landed at Veracruz under General Winfield Scott. In September 1847, Scott captured Mexico City after the bitter Battle of Chapultepec. Six military students are said to have thrown themselves from Chapultepec Castle to their deaths during this battle, rather than surrender. Today, the Monument to the Boy Heroes stands in Chapultepec Park in Mexico City.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed in February 1848, ended the Mexican War. Under the treaty, Mexico gave the United States the land that is now California, Nevada, and Utah; most of Arizona; and parts of Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming. Mexico also recognized Texas, south to the Rio Grande, as part of the United States. Mexico received $15 million from the United States. In the Gadsden Purchase of 1853, the United States paid Mexico $10 million for land in what is now southern Arizona and New Mexico.

Reform.

The Mexican War exhausted Mexico’s economy, and great political confusion developed. Santa Anna seized power again in 1853 and ruled as a dictator. The liberals, who had been gaining strength since the war, drove Santa Anna from power in 1855.

Benito Juárez, a Zapotec from Oaxaca, and others gave the liberal movement effective leadership. They promoted the private ownership of land and wanted to eliminate the privileges of the Roman Catholic Church. After they took over the government in 1855, the liberals passed laws to break up the large estates of the church and the lands held in common by Indigenous villages. In 1857, a new constitution brought back the federal system of government.

These reforms led to a conservative revolt in 1858. Juárez fled from Mexico City. The liberals declared him president, and he set up a government in Veracruz. During the civil war that followed, known as the War of the Reform, a conservative government operated in Mexico City. The Catholic bishops supported the conservatives because of the liberals’ opposition to the church. In 1859, Juárez issued his Reform Laws in an attempt to end the church’s political power in Mexico. The laws ordered the separation of church and state, and the take-over of all church property. The liberal armies defeated the conservatives late in 1860, and Juárez returned to Mexico City in 1861.

The French invasion.

The Mexican government had little money after the War of the Reform. Juárez stopped payments on the country’s debts to the United Kingdom, France, and Spain. Troops of those three nations occupied Veracruz in 1862. The British and Spaniards soon left Mexico after they saw that the French were more interested in political power than in collecting debts. The French emperor, Napoleon III, took this opportunity to invade and conquer Mexico. Napoleon knew that the United States would oppose the invasion, but he was confident the U.S. government could not intervene, because it was fighting the American Civil War (1861-1865). French troops occupied Mexico City in 1863, and Juárez escaped from the capital.

In 1864, Mexican conservatives, aided by Napoleon III, named Maximilian emperor of Mexico. Maximilian was a brother of the emperor of Austria. Juárez and the liberals fought guerrilla-style battles against Maximilian and the French invaders. In 1866, the United States pressured France to remove its troops. In addition, Napoleon III feared that war would break out in Europe. In 1866 and 1867, he withdrew his forces from Mexico. Juárez’s forces then captured and shot Maximilian, and the conservative movement broke up. Juárez then returned to Mexico City. He served as president from 1867 until his death in 1872.

The dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz.

Frequent revolts took place after Juárez’s death. In 1876, Porfirio Díaz, a mestizo general, overthrew Juárez’s successor. Díaz developed good relations with the conservatives and with some liberal state leaders who cooperated with him. He used the army to control his opponents. Díaz served as president from 1876 to 1880, and again from 1884 to 1911. The strength of his allies and the people’s fear of the army helped Díaz rule as a dictator. Many people who sided with him became wealthy.

Mexico’s economy improved under Díaz. He attracted foreign investment to connect Mexico with the rest of the world, particularly the United States. Investors’ money helped build railroads, develop mines and oil wells, and expand manufacturing. However, the government kept industrial wages low and crushed attempts to form labor unions. Indigenous communities lost their land to big landowners. The great majority of Mexicans remained poor and uneducated. Economic improvements primarily benefited big landowners, business owners, and foreign investors.

The Revolution of 1910.

Opposition to Díaz’s rule began to grow after 1900. Francisco Indalecio Madero, a liberal landowner, decided to run for president against Díaz in 1910. During the campaign, Madero became widely popular. Díaz had him imprisoned until after the election, which Díaz won. Madero then fled to the United States.

In November 1910, Madero issued a call for revolution. He had opposed violence, but he saw no other way to overthrow Díaz. Revolutionary bands developed throughout Mexico. They defeated federal troops, destroyed railroads, and attacked towns and estates. In May 1911, members of Díaz’s government agreed to force him from office, in the hope of preventing further bloodshed. Díaz resigned and left Mexico, and Madero was elected president later that year.

Madero meant well, but he could not handle the many groups that opposed him. Some groups wanted a dictatorship. Others demanded greater reforms than Madero enacted. General Victoriano Huerta seized control of the government in 1913, and Madero was killed.

Some Mexicans supported Huerta’s dictatorship, hoping for peace. But Madero’s followers united behind Venustiano Carranza, the governor of Coahuila, and bitter fighting continued. Powerful military leaders from northern Mexico, including the famous Pancho Villa and Álvaro Obregón, led the war against Huerta. United States President Woodrow Wilson sided with Carranza’s revolutionaries. In 1914, U.S. forces seized Veracruz. Wilson hoped to prevent the shipment of arms from the seaport to Huerta’s army. Later in 1914, Carranza’s forces occupied Mexico City, and Huerta was forced to leave the country.

The Constitution of 1917.

The victorious revolutionary leaders soon began to struggle with one another for power. Carranza’s and Obregón’s armies fought those of Villa and the Indigenous leader Emiliano Zapata. Villa and Zapata demanded more extreme reforms than Carranza planned. In 1915, the United States supported Carranza and halted the export of guns to his enemies. In revenge, Villa crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in 1916 and raided Columbus, New Mexico. His men killed 18 Americans. About five times as many Mexicans also died in the raid. President Wilson sent General John J. Pershing into Mexico, but Pershing’s troops failed to capture Villa.

In 1916, Carranza’s power was recognized throughout most of Mexico. He called a convention to write a new constitution. The Constitution, adopted in 1917, combined Carranza’s liberal policies with more radical social reforms. It gave the government control over education and over farm and oil properties. It also eliminated some privileges enjoyed by the Roman Catholic Church, limited Mexico’s president to one term in office, and recognized labor unions. But Carranza did little to carry out the new constitutional program. In 1920, he was killed during a revolt led by Obregón, who then became president.

Reforms of the early 1900’s.

Obregón distributed some land among the peasants, built many schools throughout the countryside, and supported a strong labor union movement. Plutarco Elías Calles, who had fought Huerta and Villa alongside Obregón, became president in 1924. Calles carried on the revolutionary program. He encouraged land reform, reorganized the country’s financial system, and enforced constitutional controls over the Roman Catholic Church. In protest, the Catholic bishops closed their churches from 1926 to 1929. This action led to a peasant rebellion.

The assassination of Obregón in 1928 caused a political crisis. Obregón had just been elected president but had not yet taken office. When Calles’s term ended, Emilio Portes Gil became interim president. But Calles remained the real power behind the presidency. In 1929, Portes Gil reached an agreement with Catholic officials that allowed the Catholic Church to operate churches and schools without interference. In return, church leaders promised to stay out of political affairs.

Calles and his allies formed the National Revolutionary Party (PNR) in 1929. Before the formation of the PNR, Mexican political parties had been temporary groups organized by presidential candidates. The PNR stood for the goals of the Mexican Revolution and included all important political groups. It was reorganized as the Party of the Mexican Revolution in 1938, and as the Institutional Revolutionary Party in 1946.

By 1930, the push for reform had slowed down. The Great Depression, a worldwide economic slump, hit Mexico hard and prevented high government spending on social reforms. Calles and many other old leaders also opposed extreme changes. Younger politicians called for speeding up the revolutionary program. As a result, in 1933, the PNR adopted a six-year plan of social and economic reform. The party chose General Lázaro Cárdenas as its presidential candidate and charged him with carrying out the reform plan.

After Cárdenas became president in 1934, he ended Calles’s power. He divided among the peasants about 49 million acres (19 million hectares) of land. This was more than twice as much land as all previous presidents combined had given the peasants. Cárdenas also promoted government controls over foreign-owned companies and strongly supported labor unions. In 1938, during an oil workers’ strike, the government took over the properties of American and British oil companies in Mexico. The companies and the British government protested angrily. The U.S. government recognized Mexico’s right to the properties as long as the companies received fair payment. In the 1940’s, Mexico agreed to pay the companies for their lost property.

During and after World War II.

Mexico’s economy grew rapidly in the 1940’s. Manuel Ávila Camacho, who was president from 1940 to 1946, did much to encourage industrial progress. World War II (1939-1945) also contributed to industrial growth. Mexico entered the war on the side of the Allies in 1942 . It sent an air force unit to the Philippines to fight the Japanese. About 250,000 Mexican immigrants also fought in the U.S. Army. However, Mexico’s contribution to the war effort was mostly economic. The country supplied raw materials and many laborers to the United States. It also made military equipment in factories that the United States had helped set up. The value of Mexican exports had nearly doubled when the war ended in 1945.

The economy continued to improve after the war. Industry and other economic activities expanded through the 1960’s. Aided by generous government assistance, new factories made such products as automobiles, cement, chemicals, clothing, electrical appliances, processed foods, and steel. The government expanded highway, irrigation, and railroad systems. Many new buildings went up, especially in the capital. Agricultural exports to the United States increased, and a growing number of foreign tourists visited Mexico.

The late 1900’s.

During the late 1960’s, many Mexicans, especially students, accused the government of human rights violations and other abuses of power. On Oct. 2, 1968, soldiers fired on a crowd of student demonstrators in Mexico City’s Tlatelolco district. Hundreds of people were killed. During the 1970’s and early 1980’s, many people involved in antigovernment movements disappeared and were presumably killed. Many Mexicans and members of human rights groups blamed military and security forces for the disappearances.

Worldwide problems of recession and inflation led to a decrease in economic production and sharp price increases in Mexico during the 1970’s. In 1976, Mexico devalued (lowered the value of) its currency, the peso, twice. The devaluations were efforts to stabilize the economy by reducing the cost of Mexican exports and thus making them more competitive abroad.

Luis Echeverría Álvarez, who was president of Mexico from 1970 to 1976, increased government control over foreign-owned businesses. He also took steps that strained Mexico’s friendship with the United States. For example, he improved Mexico’s relations with socialist governments in Cuba and Chile in spite of U.S. opposition to those governments. Illegal immigration of Mexicans into the United States, plus drug smuggling from Mexico to the United States, caused more problems between the two countries.

José López Portillo became president in 1976. He reduced government controls over both foreign and domestic businesses to encourage private investment in Mexico. Vast petroleum deposits were discovered in and near the Gulf of Mexico in the 1970’s. Mexico became a major oil exporter. Its relations with the United States also improved. In the late 1970’s, the government greatly increased spending on public works and industry to create more jobs.

Despite Mexico’s newfound oil wealth, many people remained poor. Many farmers still lacked modern agricultural equipment and irrigation systems, and wages for farm laborers remained low. Each year, more rural Mexicans moved to cities to look for jobs. This migration and a high rate of population growth contributed to overcrowding and unemployment in urban areas. Millions of Mexicans moved to other countries, especially the United States, to try to make a better living.

The Mexican government expected the income from petroleum to help balance its spending. But by 1981, decreased demand and lower prices for petroleum contributed to an economic crisis in Mexico. The government could not pay its foreign debt, and the value of the peso plummeted during the 1980’s. Unemployment and prices rose sharply.

In 1982, Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado became president. He cut down on government spending, especially aid for the poor. But Mexico’s economic problems continued. The problems worsened in the early 1980’s, when thousands of refugees from civil wars in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua entered Mexico and settled in camps near its southern border.

In September 1985, earthquakes struck south-central Mexico, including Mexico City. They caused about 10,000 deaths and $5 billion in property damage. The government’s slow, ineffective response to the tragedy made many Mexicans critical of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which had been in power since 1929.

Opposition to the PRI

grew during the mid-1980’s. In 1988, the party’s candidate, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, was elected Mexico’s president in the closest election in decades. Many people believed that Salinas won the election by fraud, and he entered office amid much criticism. That same year, an opposition coalition called the National Democratic Front and the National Action Party, an opposition party, won almost half of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies. As a result, the president could no longer rely on the vote of two-thirds of the Chamber that was required to amend the Constitution.

Salinas promised to remove government restrictions on the economy and to reform Mexican politics. He tried to stimulate economic growth and overcome Mexico’s huge foreign debt by further reducing government ownership of businesses, and encouraging large-scale foreign investment in Mexico. Mexico’s economy improved under these reforms, and the PRI won a majority of seats in the Chamber of Deputies in 1991 elections.

In 1993, Mexico, Canada, and the United States ratified (formally approved) the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The treaty, which went into effect on Jan. 1, 1994, gradually eliminated trade barriers among the three nations.

A few hours after NAFTA went into effect, Maya rebels took control of several towns in Chiapas state. The rebel group called itself the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, in memory of the revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata. The rebels’ spokesperson, who was not of Indigenous descent, hid his identity with a mask and claimed that NAFTA would harm his supporters economically. However, the major cause of the revolt was the poor living conditions in the region. About 100 people were killed in fighting between the Zapatistas and government troops. The government regained possession of the towns within two weeks and declared a cease-fire on January 12. The Zapatistas continued to campaign against the poverty and discrimination faced by Indigenous Mexicans.

In 1994, Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León of the PRI was elected president. The PRI’s previous candidate for president, Luis Donaldo Colosio, had been murdered after calling for fundamental changes in the party. Shortly after taking office, Zedillo faced an economic crisis. Mexico’s economy had developed weaknesses, caused in part by large foreign debts and years of the government spending more than it received. These weaknesses prompted Zedillo to devalue the peso, but the sudden devaluation triggered a crisis. An emergency economic plan and an international aid package helped ease the crisis in 1995, but the economy continued to struggle.

The Mexican government passed a series of election reforms in 1996. To help prevent voting fraud, the reforms created an independent federal elections board. They also provided for the direct election of the mayor of Mexico City. Previously, the mayor had been appointed by the president.

In elections held in 1997, the PRI lost its majority in the Chamber of Deputies. In 2000, Vicente Fox Quesada of the National Action Party was elected president of Mexico. He became the first non-PRI candidate to be elected to that office in 71 years.

The early 2000’s.

Felipe Calderón of the National Action Party (PAN) was narrowly elected president in 2006. In 2008, Mexico’s government passed legislation to reform the criminal justice system. The new legislation provided for public court hearings and the presumption of innocence, until proven guilty, of people charged with crimes. Under the old system, judges decided cases privately based on written evidence. The reforms took effect over the next eight years.

Violence connected with Mexican drug cartels (associations of suppliers) escalated in the early 2000’s. Tens of thousands of people died as a result of fighting among the cartels and between the cartels and Mexican authorities. The violence was particularly bad on Mexico’s northern border. By early 2009, President Calderón had deployed tens of thousands of soldiers and federal police to combat the violence.

In 2010, Mexico celebrated the bicentennial (200th anniversary) of the beginning of the revolt that led to national independence.

Enrique Peña Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) won a presidential election in 2012. Josefina Vázquez Mota of the incumbent PAN placed third. Many voters were unhappy with the lagging economy and the increase in drug-related violence under PAN leadership. In 2014, Mexico’s government opened the state-controlled petroleum industry to private investment.

In 2013, Tropical Storm Manuel and Hurricane Ingrid struck Mexico’s west and east coasts, respectively. More than 100 people were killed, and dozens more went missing following a landslide in the southwestern town of La Pintada. Guerrero state was hit especially hard. In September 2017, a powerful earthquake struck the Pacific coast of southern Mexico, killing at least 96 people in the states of Oaxaca, Chiapas, and Tabasco. A second earthquake that month hit central Mexico, killing more than 200 people in the Federal District and in the states of Guerrero, México, Morelos, Oaxaca, and Puebla.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the liberal MORENA party was elected president in 2018.

Canada, Mexico, and the United States renegotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in the late 2010’s. An updated version of NAFTA took effect in 2020. In Mexico, it was called the Treaty Between Mexico, the United States, and Canada (T-MEC). It maintained the largely tariff-free trade zone established by NAFTA, and introduced new obligations in such areas as e-commerce, the environment, and labor practices.

The COVID-19 pandemic (global outbreak of disease) that began in 2020 greatly impacted Mexico’s public health and strained its economy. COVID-19 is a respiratory disease caused by a coronavirus. Efforts to control the outbreak in Mexico included closing schools, suspending nonessential economic and government activities, and urging people to stay at home. A majority of the population eventually was vaccinated against COVID-19. As of early 2023, Mexico had experienced more than 7 ¹/₄ million confirmed cases of the coronavirus, and more than 330,000 confirmed deaths from COVID-19. It ranked among the nations with the most confirmed cumulative infections and deaths from the disease.

In 2021, Mexico’s government apologized to the Indigenous Maya people for injustices committed against them since the Spanish conquest in the early 1500’s.

In June 2024, Claudia Sheinbaum of the MORENA party was elected president of Mexico. She was expected to take office in October. Sheinbaum, a former mayor of Mexico City, was the first woman to be elected as the nation’s president.