Explore Mexico in North America
Mexico with its capital Mexico City is located in North America (Middle America, bordering the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico). It covers some 1,972,551 square kilometres (slightly less than three times the size of Texas) with 109,955,000 citizens. Spanish is the language commonly spoken by people in Mexico. Guatemala, United States and Belize are bordering countries.
Mexico officially the United Mexican States (Spanish: Estados Unidos Mexicanos), is a country in North America, lying between the United States of America to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast. Mexico is one of the most popular tourist countries on earth. Much of the tourist industry is centered around the beach resorts as well as the altiplano in the central part of the country. Visiting the northern interior allows visitors to get off the beaten path a bit. American tourists tend to predominate on the Baja peninsula and the more modernized beach resorts (Cancún, Puerto Vallarta), while European tourists congregate around the smaller resort areas in the south like Playa del Carmen and colonial towns San Cristobal de las Casas.
Pictures from the Mexican capital
Have a look at our dedicated photo collection to get a view of what Mexico City is like. We have selected more pictures from Mexico City on our dedicated gallery page.
Awesome photos provided by Panoramio are under the copyright of their owners.
Landscape, climate and basic hints for travelling
Website: Mexico Tourism
Oficina de Convenciones y Visitantes de Acapulco
Ave. Costera Miguel Aleman No.3111
Fracc. Costa Azul, Suites 204-205
Acapulco, GRO 39850
Phone: +52 7 484 8555
Phone: +52 7 484 8134
The topography features high, rugged mountains with low coastal plains, high plateaus and desert. The average density of population is about 56 per km². The climate in Mexico can be described as varying from tropical to desert. Potential natural disasters are tsunamis along the Pacific coast, volcanoes and destructive earthquakes in the center and south, and hurricanes on the Pacific, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean coasts.
To reach someone in Mexico dial +52 prior to a number. There are 19,425,000 installed telephones. And there are 83,528,000 registered mobile phones. The cellular networks operate on frequencies of 1900 Mhz. Websites typically end with the top level domain ".mx". If you want to bring electric appliances (e.g. battery charger), keep in mind the local 127V - 60Hz.
Learn more on our Mexican Facts page.
Description of the flag of Mexico
Three equal vertical bands of green (hoist side), white, and red; Mexico's coat of arms (an eagle with a snake in its beak perched on a cactus) is centered in the white band; green signifies hope, joy, and love; white represents peace and honesty; red stands for hardiness, bravery, strength, and valor; the coat of arms is derived from a legend that the wandering Aztec people were to settle at a location where they would see an eagle on a cactus eating a snake; the city they founded, Tenochtitlan, is now Mexico City
note: similar to the flag of Italy, which is shorter, uses lighter shades of red and green, and does not have anything in its white band.
National administrative regions of Mexico
- ▶ Aguascalientes
- ▶ Baja California
- ▶ Baja California Sur
- ▶ Campeche
- ▶ Chiapas
- ▶ Chihuahua
- ▶ Coahuila
- ▶ Colima
- ▶ Durango
- ▶ Guanajuato
- ▶ Guerrero
- ▶ Hidalgo
- ▶ Jalisco
- ▶ Mexico
- ▶ Mexico (general)
- ▶ Michoacan
- ▶ Morelos
- ▶ Nayarit
- ▶ Nuevo Leon
- ▶ Oaxaca
- ▶ Puebla
- ▶ Queretaro
- ▶ Quintana Roo
- ▶ San Luis Potosi
- ▶ Sinaloa
- ▶ Sonora
- ▶ Tabasco
- ▶ Tamaulipas
- ▶ The Federal District
- ▶ Tlaxcala
- ▶ Veracruz-Llave
- ▶ Yucatan
- ▶ Zacatecas
Historical background information
The site of several advanced Amerindian civilizations - including the Olmec, Toltec, Teotihuacan, Zapotec, Maya, and Aztec - Mexico was conquered and colonized by Spain in the early 16th century. Administered as the Viceroyalty of New Spain for three centuries, it achieved its independence early in the 19th century. The global financial crisis beginning in late 2008 caused a massive economic downturn the following year, although growth returned quickly in 2010. Ongoing economic and social concerns include low real wages, underemployment for a large segment of the population, inequitable income distribution, and few advancement opportunities for the largely indigenous population in the impoverished southern states. The elections held in 2000 marked the first time since the 1910 Mexican Revolution that an opposition candidate - Vicente FOX of the National Action Party (PAN) - defeated the party in government, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). He was succeeded in 2006 by another PAN candidate Felipe CALDERON, but the PRI regained the presidency in 2012. Since 2007, Mexico's powerful drug-trafficking organizations have engaged in bloody feuding, resulting in tens of thousands of drug-related homicides.
Learn more on our Mexican Facts page.
Based on the content from wikitravel.org. The original article can be found here based on the work of these users. Geography information is based on the data provided by geonames.org, CIA world facts book Edition 2010 and 2013, Unesco, DBpedia, wikipedia and others.