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Travel to Mexico — Unbiased reviews and
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Mexico
United Mexican States Official
name: Estados Unidos Mexicanos President: Felipe Calderón
(2006)
Current government officials
Land area: 742,485 sq mi (1,923,039 sq
km); total area: 761,602 sq mi (1,972,550 sq km) Population (2008 est.): 109,955,400 (growth
rate: 1.1%); birth rate: 20.0/1000; infant mortality rate: 19.0/1000;
life expectancy: 75.8; density per sq km: 57
Capital and largest city (2003 est.):
Mexico City, 19,013,000 (metro. area), 8,591,309
(city proper) Other large cities:
Ecatepec, 1,731,900 (part of Mexico City metro. area); Guadalajara,
1,665,800; Puebla, 1,345,500; Nezahualcóyotl, 1,250,700 (part
of Mexico City metro. area); Monterrey, 1,135,000 Monetary unit: Mexican peso
Languages:
Spanish, various Mayan, Nahuatl, and other
regional indigenous languages
Ethnicity/race:
mestizo (Amerindian-Spanish) 60%, Amerindian or
predominantly Amerindian 30%, white 9%, other 1%
Religions:
nominally Roman Catholic 89%, Protestant 6%,
other 5%
National Holiday:
Independence Day, September 16 Literacy rate: 91% (2004 est.) Economic summary: GDP/PPP (2007 est.):
$1.346 trillion; per capita $12,800. Real growth rate: 3.3%.
Inflation: 4%. Unemployment: 3.7% plus underemployment
of perhaps 25%. Arable land: 13%. Agriculture: corn,
wheat, soybeans, rice, beans, cotton, coffee, fruit, tomatoes; beef,
poultry, dairy products; wood products. Labor force: 45.38
million; agriculture 18%, industry 24%, services 58% (2003).
Industries: food and beverages, tobacco, chemicals, iron and
steel, petroleum, mining, textiles, clothing, motor vehicles, consumer
durables, tourism. Natural resources: petroleum, silver,
copper, gold, lead, zinc, natural gas, timber. Exports: $267.5
billion f.o.b. (2007 est.): manufactured goods, oil and oil products,
silver, fruits, vegetables, coffee, cotton. Imports: $279.3
billion f.o.b. (2007 est.): metalworking machines, steel mill
products, agricultural machinery, electrical equipment, car parts for
assembly, repair parts for motor vehicles, aircraft, and aircraft
parts. Major trading partners: U.S., Canada, Spain, South
Korea, Japan (2006). Communications:
Telephones: main lines in use: 19.861 million (2006); mobile
cellular: 57.016 million (2006). Radio broadcast stations: AM
850, FM 545, shortwave 15 (2003). Radios: 31 million (1997).
Television broadcast stations: 236 (plus repeaters) (1997).
Televisions: 25.6 million (1997). Internet Service Providers
(ISPs): 7.629 million (2007). Internet users: 22 million
(2006). Transportation: Railways:
total: 17,665 km (2006). Highways: total: 235,670 km; paved:
116,751 km (including 6,144 km of expressways); unpaved: 118,919 km
(2004). Waterways: 2,900 km navigable rivers and coastal
canals. Ports and harbors: Acapulco, Altamira, Coatzacoalcos,
Ensenada, Guaymas, La Paz, Lazaro Cardenas, Manzanillo, Mazatlan,
Progreso, Salina Cruz, Tampico, Topolobampo, Tuxpan, Veracruz.
Airports: 1,834 (2007). International disputes: prolonged regional
drought in the border region with the U.S. has strained water-sharing
arrangements.
Major sources and definitions
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Geography
Mexico is bordered by the United States to the
north and Belize and Guatemala to the southeast. Mexico is about one-fifth
the size of the United States. Baja California in the west is an 800-mile
(1,287-km) peninsula and forms the Gulf of California. In the east are the
Gulf of Mexico and the Bay of Campeche, which is formed by Mexico's other
peninsula, the Yucatán. The center of Mexico is a great, high
plateau, open to the north, with mountain chains on the east and west and
with ocean-front lowlands lying outside them.
Government
Federal republic.
History
At least three great civilizations—the
Mayas, the Olmecs, and later the Toltecs—preceded the wealthy Aztec
empire, conquered in 1519–1521 by the Spanish under Hernando
Cortés. Spain ruled Mexico as part of the viceroyalty of New Spain
for the next 300 years until Sept. 16, 1810, when the Mexicans first
revolted. They won independence in 1821.
From 1821 to 1877, there were two emperors,
several dictators, and enough presidents and provisional executives to
make a new government on the average of every nine months. Mexico lost
Texas (1836), and after defeat in the war with the U.S. (1846–1848),
it lost the area that is now California, Nevada, and Utah, most of Arizona
and New Mexico, and parts of Wyoming and Colorado under the Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo. In 1855, the Indian patriot Benito Juárez began
a series of reforms, including the disestablishment of the Catholic
Church, which owned vast property. The subsequent civil war was
interrupted by the French invasion of Mexico (1861) and the crowning of
Maximilian of Austria as emperor (1864). He was overthrown and executed by
forces under Juárez, who again became president in 1867.
The years after the fall of the dictator
Porfirio Diaz (1877–1880 and 1884–1911) were marked by bloody
political-military strife and trouble with the U.S., culminating in the
punitive U.S. expedition into northern Mexico (1916–1917) in
unsuccessful pursuit of the revolutionary Pancho Villa. Since a brief
civil war in 1920, Mexico has enjoyed a period of gradual agricultural,
political, and social reforms. The Partido Nacional Revolucionario (PNR;
National Revolutionary Party), dominated by revolutionary and reformist
politicians from northern Mexico, was established in 1929; it continued to
control Mexico throughout the 20th century and was renamed the Partido
Revolucionario Institucional (PRI; Institutional Revolutionary Party) in
1946. Relations with the U.S. were disturbed in 1938 when all foreign oil
wells were expropriated, but a compensation agreement was reached in
1941.
Following World War II, the government
emphasized economic growth. During the mid-1970s, under the leadership of
President José López Portillo, Mexico became a major
petroleum producer. By the end of Portillo's term, however, Mexico had
accumulated a huge external debt because of the government's unrestrained
borrowing on the strength of its petroleum revenues. The collapse of oil
prices in 1986 cut Mexico's export earnings. In Jan. 1994, Mexico joined
Canada and the United States in the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA), which will phase out all tariffs over a 15-year period, and in
Jan. 1996, it became a founding member of the World Trade Organization
(WTO).
In 1995, the U.S. agreed to prevent the collapse
of Mexico's private banks. In return, the U.S. won virtual veto power over
much of Mexico's economic policy. In 1997, in what observers called the
freest elections in Mexico's history, the PRI lost control of the lower
legislative house and the mayoralty of Mexico City in a stunning upset. To
increase democracy, President Ernesto Zedillo said in 1999 that he would
break precedent and not personally choose the next PRI presidential
nominee. Several months later, Mexico held its first presidential primary,
which was won by former interior secretary Francisco Labastida, Zedillo's
closest ally among the candidates.
In elections held on July 2, 2000, the PRI lost
the presidency, ending 71 years of one-party rule. The new president,
Vicente Fox Quesada of the conservative National Action Party (PAN), vowed
tax reform, an overhaul of the legal system, and a reduction in power of
the central government. By 2002, however, Fox had made little headway on
his ambitious reform agenda. Disfavor with Fox was evident in 2003
parliamentary elections, when the PRI rebounded.
In 2004, a two-year investigation into the
“dirty war,” which Mexico's authoritarian government waged
against its opponents in the 1960s and 1970s, led to an
indictment—later dropped—against former president Luis
Echeverria for ordering the 1971 shooting of student protesters.
In 2005, Andrés Manuel López
Obrador, the enormously popular mayor of Mexico City, emerged as a
presidential candidate for the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution.
López Obrador seemed likely to defeat the party of the deeply
unpopular incumbent, Vicente Fox. But in Oct. 2005, Felipe Calderón
unexpectedly became the candidate of Fox's National Action Party (PAN),
defeating Fox's chosen successor. By spring 2006, Felipe Calderón
had caught up to López Obrador in opinion polls. In the July
election, Calderón won 35.9% of the vote, a razor-thin margin over
López Obrador, who received 35.3%. López Obrador appealed
the election, but on Aug. 28 Mexico's top electoral court rejected
López Obrador's allegations of fraud. His supporters held massive
protest rallies before and after the verdict. Calderón was sworn in
on Dec. 1.
On February 26, 2008, lawmakers approved new
legislation that restricts cigarette smoking in public spaces. Violators
will be heavily fined and sentenced to up to 36 hours in jail. The
government reported that $642 million of health-care costs are due to
smoking-related diseases.
In May 2008, Attorney-general Eduardo Medina
Mora announced that over 4,000 people had been killed in drug-related
violence since President Calderon took office—1,400 of the deaths
occurred in 2008 alone.
In August 2008, hundreds of thousands of
protesters across the country marched for the more than 2,700 people who
were killed and 300 kidnapped in drug-related violence since January
2008. In December 2008, the number of killings registered between 1 January and 2 December was 5,376—a rise of 117% from last year. In November 2008 alone, there were 943 drug-related murders.
In December, 2008, the United States released $197 million of a $400 million plan called the Merida Initiative to help Mexico fight the drugs cartels.
See also Encyclopedia: Mexico. U.S. State Dept. Country Notes:
Mexico National Institute of Statistics, Geography, and
Informatics www.inegi.gob.mx/ . See
also Presidents of Mexico since 1917.
Information Please® Database, © 2008 Pearson
Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
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