Mexico
Name
| Official name | United Mexican States — Estados Unidos Mexicanos |
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| Former names | New Spain — Nueva España — the viceroyalty of 1535–1821; the Mexican Empire of Iturbide (1821–23) and of Maximilian (1864–67); the Aztec Empire of the Triple Alliance before, and Anáhuac, the land by the water |
| Demonym | Mexican |
| Meaning of the name | From the Mexica, the Aztecs' name for themselves — in Nahuatl the place of Mextli, the moon's navel, or the god Huitzilopochtli's; Mexico-Tenochtitlan the city, the Valley of Mexico its lake, the nation from 1821 |
| Motto | None official — "Sufragio efectivo, no reelección," effective suffrage, no re-election, Madero's cry of 1910 on the state's papers |
Quick facts
| Capital | Mexico City — Ciudad de México; Tenochtitlan of 1325, the capital of New Spain from 1521 and of the republic since 1824; about 9.2 million in the city, 22 million in the metropolis, the largest of North America |
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| Largest cities | Mexico City; Guadalajara, about 5.5 million in its metropolis; Monterrey, about 5.3 million; Puebla; Toluca; Tijuana, the border city of 2 million; León; Ciudad Juárez; Querétaro; Mérida; San Luis Potosí; Cancún; Chihuahua; Aguascalientes; Culiacán; Acapulco |
| Official language | None declared — Spanish the de facto national language, spoken by 94% and by more people here than in any other country; 68 indigenous languages with 364 variants recognized as national languages by the law of 2003, Nahuatl of 1.7 million speakers, Maya of 770,000, Tseltal, Tsotsil, Mixtec, Zapotec, Otomí; English in the border cities and the resorts |
| Currency | Mexican peso — MXN, $; 100 centavos; the "new peso" of 1 January 1993; about 18 to the U.S. dollar |
| Time zones | Four — Central, UTC−6, for most of the country including Mexico City; Pacific, UTC−7, for Sonora, Sinaloa, Nayarit, Chihuahua and Baja California Sur; Northwest, UTC−8, for Baja California; Southeast, UTC−5, for Quintana Roo; summer time abolished 30 October 2022 except in the border towns |
| Calling code | +52 |
| Internet domain | .mx |
| ISO 3166 codes | MX · MEX · 484 |
| Vehicle registration code | MEX |
| Driving side | Right |
| Electricity | 127 V, 60 Hz; plug types A and B |
| Independence | 16 September 1810, the Cry of Dolores of the priest Miguel Hidalgo, the national day; consummated 27 September 1821 with the Army of the Three Guarantees' entry into Mexico City after the Treaty of Córdoba of 24 August; recognized by Spain 28 December 1836 |
| National days | 16 September, Independence Day, with the president's Grito from the National Palace balcony the night before; 5 February, Constitution Day; 21 March, Juárez's birthday; 1 May; 20 November, Revolution Day; 1 October every six years for the inauguration; 24 February, Flag Day; 5 May, Puebla, a holiday of the north and the diaspora; 1–2 November, the Day of the Dead; 12 December, Our Lady of Guadalupe; Christmas |
| Constitution | 5 February 1917 — the Constitution of Querétaro, the first in the world to write in social rights, the land reform of Article 27 and the labor rights of Article 123, amended more than 250 times: the federal republic of 32 entities, the president for one six-year term without re-election, the Congress of two houses, the Supreme Court; the judicial reform of 15 September 2024 that made all judges elected by the people, the National Guard under the army, the autonomous agencies abolished and the no-re-election of legislators from 2030 the amendments of the Sheinbaum years |
| Population | 126,014,024 at the census of 2020; about 131 million (CONAPO, 2026 est.) — the tenth in the world; from 13.6 million in 1900 |
| Area | 1,964,375 km² (758,449 sq mi) — land 1,943,945 km², water 20,430 km²; the fourteenth-largest; the islands of Revillagigedo, Guadalupe and Cozumel |
Flag & national symbols
| National flag | Three vertical bands of green, white and red with the national coat of arms on the white — the golden eagle on a prickly pear cactus devouring a rattlesnake, the sign the Mexica were told to seek for their city — the colors of the Army of the Three Guarantees of 1821, independence, religion and union, read today as hope, unity and the blood of the heroes; the flag of 1821 remade in 1968 by Pedro Moctezuma Díaz Infante for the Olympics, fixed by the law of 1984, the "banderas monumentales" of 50 m on the poles of the plazas since 1999.Flag of Mexico |
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| Coat of arms | The golden eagle perched on a nopal cactus growing from a rock in the lake, a serpent in its beak and talon, over a wreath of oak and laurel tied with the tricolor — the omen of Huitzilopochtli that ended the Mexica's wandering at Tenochtitlan in 1325, drawn from the Codex Mendoza; the design of Francisco Eppens Helguera of 1968 |
| National anthem | "Himno Nacional Mexicano" — "Mexicanos, al grito de guerra" — words by the poet Francisco González Bocanegra, locked in a room by his fiancée until he wrote them, 1853, music by the Catalan Jaime Nunó, 1854; first sung 15 September 1854, official by the law of 1943; the ten stanzas cut to four |
| National motto | None official |
| National colors | Green, white and red |
| National bird | The golden eagle — the águila real of the arms; the resplendent quetzal of the Maya south; widely cited |
| National animal | The jaguar of the Olmec and the Maya; the xoloitzcuintli, the hairless dog of the Aztecs and of Frida Kahlo; the axolotl of Xochimilco, the salamander of the peso note; the vaquita of the upper Gulf of California, the rarest marine mammal, fewer than ten left; widely cited |
| National tree | The ahuehuete — the Montezuma cypress of the springs and the rivers, the Tree of Tule at Oaxaca with the stoutest trunk of any tree on earth, 14 m across, the Tree of the Sad Night under which Cortés wept; declared 1921 |
| National flower | The dahlia — the dalia, the Aztecs' acocoxochitl bred into thousands of forms; declared 13 May 1963 |
| National dish | Mole — the poblano of Puebla and the seven of Oaxaca, chiles, chocolate and thirty ingredients ground for the feasts; the tacos of every corner, al pastor of the Lebanese spit; chiles en nogada of the tricolor of September; pozole; tamales; the traditional Mexican cuisine on UNESCO's list since 2010, the first of any country; tequila and mezcal, the pulque; widely cited |
| National sport | Charrería, the horsemanship of the haciendas, the national sport by decree of 1933 and on UNESCO's list since 2016; football the passion of the millions, the three World Cups hosted; the lucha libre of the masks; boxing of the most world champions; baseball of the north and the Gulf; widely cited |
| Symbol status | The flag, the arms and the anthem are fixed by the Law on the National Arms, Flag and Anthem of 1984; the sport by the decree of 1933; the tree and flower by declarations; the birds, animals and dishes widely cited |
Geography
| Location | North America, the southern third of the continent — the United States to the north, Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; the Pacific to the west and south, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean to the east; the Tropic of Cancer across its middle; the bridge to Central America at the Isthmus of Tehuantepec |
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| Land borders | 4,389 km (2,727 mi) with three neighbors — the United States 3,155, the most crossed border in the world, with the fence and the wall along a third of it; Guatemala 958; Belize 276; the Rio Grande the border for 2,000 km of the first; San Ysidro–Tijuana the busiest land crossing on earth |
| Coastline | 9,330 km (5,800 mi) — 7,338 on the Pacific and the Gulf of California, 2,000 on the Gulf of Mexico and 400 on the Caribbean; Cancún and the Riviera Maya, Acapulco, Los Cabos, Puerto Vallarta; the Sea of Cortez that Cousteau called the world's aquarium; the reefs of Cozumel |
| Highest point | The Pico de Orizaba — Citlaltépetl — 5,636 m (18,491 ft), the third peak of North America |
| Lowest point | The Laguna Salada, −10 m (−33 ft), in Baja California |
| Mean elevation | 1,111 m (3,645 ft) |
| Rivers | The Rio Grande — Río Bravo — 3,034 km, the border from Ciudad Juárez to the Gulf; the Usumacinta, the largest by flow, the Guatemalan border; the Grijalva of the Chiapas dams; the Lerma–Santiago of 1,300 km, the longest wholly within the country, from the plateau through Lake Chapala to the Pacific; the Balsas; the Pánuco; the Yaqui and the Fuerte of the north; the Colorado that reaches the sea no more |
| Lakes | Chapala, 1,100 km², the largest, the water of Guadalajara, shrinking; Cuitzeo; Pátzcuaro of the Purépecha and the Day of the Dead; Texcoco, the Aztec lake drained under the capital, its last marsh the airport site abandoned in 2018; the cenotes of the Yucatán, the sinkholes of the underground rivers; the crater lakes of the volcanoes |
| Terrain | The central plateau, the Mesa Central of the cities at 1,000–2,500 m, between the Sierra Madre Occidental of the Copper Canyon and the Sierra Madre Oriental; the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt across the middle with Orizaba, Popocatépetl, 5,426 m and erupting, Iztaccíhuatl, the Nevado de Toluca and Paricutín, born in a cornfield in 1943; the Sierra Madre del Sur; the deserts of Sonora and Chihuahua; the peninsula of Baja California, 1,250 km, the longest in the world; the flat limestone of the Yucatán and the rainforests of Chiapas; the Chicxulub crater of 180 km under the northern Yucatán, the asteroid of 66 million years ago |
| Climate | From the desert of the north to the tropics of the south by the latitude and the altitude — the tierra caliente of the coasts, the tierra templada of the plateau at 20°C all year, the tierra fría of the peaks; the rains of June to October; the hurricanes of both seas from June to November; the highlands' frosts |
| Natural hazards | Earthquakes — the 19 September 1985 that killed some 10,000 in the capital and the 19 September 2017 of 370 dead, the Guerrero quake of 2 January 2026 and the Chiapas quake of 17 July 2026 of magnitude 7.3; the volcanoes, Popocatépetl's ash over 25 million people; hurricanes — Otis of 25 October 2023 that hit Acapulco as a Category 5 with 52 dead, John of 2024, the floods of October 2025 in Veracruz and Hidalgo with about 80 dead; the drought and the water crisis of the capital of 2024; the screwworm of 2025–26 that closed the U.S. border to the cattle |
| Natural resources | Silver, the world's largest producer; oil and gas of the Gulf and Tabasco; copper of Sonora; gold; zinc; lead; fluorite, the largest producer; the lithium of Sonora nationalized in 2022; iron; the timber of the sierras; the farmland of the Bajío and the Pacific coast; the sun of the deserts |
| Land use | Agricultural land about 55% — the pasture most of it, the cropland about 12%; forest about 34% |
| National parks | 67 national parks from the Desierto de los Leones of 1917, the first; the biosphere reserves — Calakmul of the jaguars, Sian Ka'an, El Vizcaíno of the gray whales, El Pinacate, the Monarch butterfly reserve of Michoacán where the butterflies of Canada winter by the millions; Sumidero Canyon; the Revillagigedo islands, the largest marine park of North America; about 180 federal protected areas on a seventh of the land |
| UNESCO World Heritage | 35 — the most of any country in the Americas and the seventh in the world: the Historic Center of Mexico City and Xochimilco (1987), Teotihuacan (1987), Chichén Itzá (1988), Palenque (1987), Monte Albán and Oaxaca (1987), Puebla (1987), Guanajuato (1988), El Tajín (1992), Morelia (1991), Zacatecas (1993), Uxmal (1996), Querétaro (1996), Campeche (1999), Calakmul (2002, 2014), the Agave Landscape of Tequila (2006), the Casa Luis Barragán (2004), the UNAM campus (2007), the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro (2010), Paquimé, the Monarch reserve, Sian Ka'an, El Vizcaíno, the Gulf of California islands, El Pinacate, Revillagigedo (2016), the Tehuacán-Cuicatlán valley (2018) and the rest; the Day of the Dead (2008), the cuisine (2010), the mariachi (2011), the charrería (2016), the Voladores of Papantla and the Talavera on the intangible list |
| Administrative divisions | 32 federal entities — 31 states and Mexico City, the Federal District until 2016, with its own constitution since 2017 — under governors elected for six years; 2,478 municipalities, the 16 boroughs of the capital among them; the four largest states Chihuahua, Sonora, Coahuila and Durango, the most peopled the State of Mexico with 17 million |
People
| Population | 126,014,024 (census of 2020); about 131 million (2026 est.) |
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| Population density | About 67 per km² (173 per sq mi) — the central plateau crowded, the north and the Yucatán empty; the State of Mexico at 760 |
| Population growth | About 0.6% a year — falling, the emigration and the birth rate below replacement since 2021 |
| Median age | About 30 years |
| Life expectancy | About 75 years — 72 for men, 78 for women, the homicides and the diabetes cutting the men's |
| Fertility rate | About 1.7 births per woman — from 7 in 1960 |
| Urban population | About 81% |
| Adult literacy | About 95% |
| Ethnic groups | Mestizo, the mixed descendants of the Spaniards and the native peoples, about 60% by the estimates; indigenous 19.4% by self-identification in the census of 2020, 23 million, with 7.4 million speakers of the 68 languages — the Nahua, Maya, Zapotec, Mixtec, Otomí, Totonac, Tsotsil, Tseltal, Mazatec, Purépecha, Tarahumara and Huichol among them; of European descent about 10%, the northerners and the elites; Afro-Mexican 2%, 2.6 million on the Costa Chica of Guerrero and Oaxaca and in Veracruz, counted for the first time in 2020; the Lebanese, Chinese, Japanese and Jewish communities of the cities; no census by race |
| Languages | Spanish by 94% as a first language and by all — the Mexican Spanish of the nahuatlisms, chocolate, tomato, avocado and coyote its gifts to the world; Nahuatl by 1.7 million, Maya by 770,000, the 66 others, the Ayapaneco of two speakers; English by about 12%; the Plautdietsch of the Mennonites of Chihuahua; the Spanish-speaking population the largest on earth |
| Religion | Roman Catholic 77.8%, the Virgin of Guadalupe of the apparition of 1531 at Tepeyac whose basilica draws 20 million a year, the most visited Catholic shrine in the world, the pilgrimages of 12 December; Protestant and evangelical 11.2%, growing in the south; none 8.1%; Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, the Jews of the capital, the Muslims of Torreón; the Santa Muerte of the margins (census of 2020); the state secular since the Reform of 1859, the Cristero War of 1926–29 the price |
| Human Development Index | 0.789 (2023 data, 2025 report) — high; about 86th of 193 |
| Poverty and the programs | 29.6% below the national poverty line in 2024 by INEGI's count, from 41.9% in 2018 — 13.4 million lifted out in six years by the minimum wage that doubled in real terms and the pensions of the elderly, the government's pride; 7% in extreme poverty; the informal economy of 55% of the workers; the minimum wage raised 13% to about 315 pesos a day for 2026; the universal pension of 65 and over |
| Sport | Football — Liga MX and the Estadio Azteca, the World Cups of 1970, 1986 and 2026, the only country to host three, the Olympic gold of London 2012; El Tri's run of 2026 — four wins without a goal conceded, the first knockout win in 40 years over Ecuador on 30 June, the loss to England 3–2 on 5 July at the Azteca, Javier Aguirre's farewell and Rafael Márquez the new coach; boxing, the most world champions of any country, Julio César Chávez and Canelo Álvarez; baseball; charrería; lucha libre; the Olympics of 1968; Formula One at the Hermanos Rodríguez; Sergio "Checo" Pérez; the taekwondo and diving medals |
| Diaspora | About 38 million people of Mexican origin in the United States, 11 million of them born in Mexico — a tenth of the nation across the border, the largest diaspora in the world by any count; the remittances of about US$62 billion in 2025, fallen 5% under the deportations and the 1% U.S. tax; Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston; the deportations of 2025–26 and the 53 consulates under review |
Government
| Form of government | Federal presidential constitutional republic under the Constitution of 1917 — the president head of state and government, elected by the people for a single six-year term, the sexenio, never re-elected; the Congress of the Union of two houses; the Supreme Court of nine, elected since 2025; 32 federal entities with their own constitutions, congresses and governors; the National Electoral Institute |
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| President | Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo (Morena — the National Regeneration Movement), since 1 October 2024 — the 66th president and the first woman, born 24 June 1962 in Mexico City to a chemist and a biologist of Jewish descent, a physicist and doctor of energy engineering of UNAM and Berkeley, a member of the climate panel that shared the Nobel of 2007, the environment secretary of López Obrador's city government and the head of government of Mexico City of 2018–23; elected 2 June 2024 with 59.76% and 35.9 million votes, the most ever, over Xóchitl Gálvez's 27.4%, on a turnout of 61%; the daily mañanera press conference inherited from her mentor; her approval about 70% through 2026; "the first woman president in 200 years," she said on her inauguration, "and I arrive with all of us" |
| The cabinet | Rosa Icela Rodríguez at the interior; Roberto Velasco at foreign affairs since 1 April 2026 after Juan Ramón de la Fuente's resignation for his health; Marcelo Ebrard, the former foreign minister and presidential rival, at the economy and the trade talks; Édgar Amador at finance; Omar García Harfuch, the police chief shot 28 times in 2020, at security; General Ricardo Trevilla at defense; Mario Delgado at education; Luz Elena González at energy; Clara Brugada the head of government of Mexico City since 5 October 2024 |
| The 2024 election | Held 2 June 2024, the largest election in the country's history with 20,000 posts: Sheinbaum 59.76%, Xóchitl Gálvez of the PAN–PRI–PRD alliance 27.4%, Jorge Álvarez Máynez of the Citizens' Movement 10.3%; the Chamber of Deputies — Morena 253 of 500, with the Greens' 62 and the Workers' Party's 49 the "qualified majority" of two-thirds, 364; the Senate — Morena, the Greens and the PT 83 of 128 and 86 with the defections, the two-thirds; the PRI, the ruler of 71 years, at 35 deputies; nine governorships of nine to Morena; 37 candidates killed in the campaign |
| The judicial election | The reform of 15 September 2024, López Obrador's last — every judge in the country elected by popular vote, the Supreme Court cut from eleven to nine with no life tenure, the Judicial Discipline Tribunal; the first election of 1 June 2025 for 881 federal posts and the state courts, turnout 13%, the "cheat sheets" of the candidates the parties favored, the boycott of the opposition; the new Supreme Court sworn 1 September 2025 with the Mixtec lawyer Hugo Aguilar Ortiz as its president, the first indigenous chief justice, the court's first session outside the capital at Tenejapa in Chiapas on 26 February 2026; "the judiciary captured," the bar associations and the opposition said; "the people choose their judges," the government; the second half of the posts in 2027 |
| The cartel war | The war since Calderón's deployment of December 2006 — about 450,000 homicides and 125,000 disappeared by the counts; the Sinaloa Cartel split into the war of the Chapitos and the Mayiza since the abduction of "El Mayo" Zambada to the United States on 25 July 2024, Culiacán a battlefield with thousands dead; the Jalisco New Generation Cartel of "El Mencho," Nemesio Oseguera, the most wanted man in the country, KILLED ON 22 FEBRUARY 2026 in the army's operation at Tapalpa, Jalisco, with American intelligence, dead in the helicopter to the capital — the answer of the same day, 252 roadblocks of burning trucks in 20 states, 25 National Guard members killed, a prison stormed at Puerto Vallarta, more than 70 dead in all, Guadalajara shut, four months before it hosted the World Cup, "absolute coordination," the president said, 2,500 soldiers to the west; his stepson Juan Carlos Valencia named his heir; "El Mayo" pleaded guilty in Brooklyn on 25 August 2025 and was sentenced to life with a US$15 billion forfeiture on 20 July 2026, urging the young to avoid his path; Ovidio Guzmán's plea of July 2025; the 29 capos transferred to the United States on 27 February 2025 with Rafael Caro Quintero, 26 more on 12 August and 37 on 20 January 2026; the mayor of Uruapan Carlos Manzo shot dead 1 November 2025, his killer's suspected boss arrested 30 July 2026; the Salamanca football-pitch massacre of 25 January 2026 with 11 dead; the government's count of daily homicides down by half since 2024, the critics' doubts of the count |
| The United States | The relationship of every day — the tariffs of the Trump administration since March 2025: 25% on the goods outside the USMCA under the fentanyl emergency, 50% on steel and aluminum that cut the steel shipments by a third, 25% on the cars' non-U.S. content, and the 10% on everything of 24 July 2026 for "forced labor" in the supply chain, 85% of exports still entering free under the treaty; the cartels designated foreign terrorist organizations 20 February 2025 and the American strikes the president rules out — "we will never accept," she said, of any intervention; the joint review of the USMCA of 1 July 2026 at which Washington declined the 16-year extension to 2042 that Mexico and Canada asked, "not in its current form," Ambassador Greer said, the annual reviews to 2036 instead, "the treaty remains in force until 2036," Ebrard answered, the rounds of talks at Mexico City in July on the autos' rules of origin and the metals; the two CIA officers who died with two Mexican agents when their truck fell into a ravine at Morelos, Chihuahua, on 19 April 2026 after an operation the federal government said it never authorized, the explanation demanded, Governor Maru Campos summoned; the indictment of Sinaloa's governor Rubén Rocha Moya and nine officials on 29 April 2026 for conspiring with the cartel, "without evidence," the president said, Rocha on leave from 1 May, back on 21 August and gone again on the 22nd, "I have committed no crime"; the review of the 53 Mexican consulates ordered 7 May 2026 over the charge that López Obrador used them to watch the diaspora; the visas revoked of governors and of López Obrador's son on 12 August 2026, "purely political," he said; "Mexico is not anyone's piñata," the president told 130,000 at the Monument to the Revolution on 31 May 2026; the meetings at the World Cup draw of December 2025 and the final of 19 July 2026 with Trump and Carney |
| Congress | The Congress of the Union — the Chamber of Deputies of 500, 300 from districts and 200 by proportional lists, elected for three years, Kenia López Rabadán of the PAN its president for 2025–26 by the rotation; the Senate of 128, elected for six years, Laura Itzel Castillo of Morena its president; the two-thirds of the ruling coalition that passed the twenty constitutional amendments of 2024–26 |
| The next election | The midterm election of 6 June 2027 — the Chamber of Deputies, 17 governorships, the state congresses and the second half of the judges; the presidential election of 2030, Sheinbaum barred from it by the Constitution |
| The reforms | The National Guard placed under the army's command, September 2024; the seven autonomous agencies abolished, the transparency institute among them, November 2024; the "Plan México" of January 2025 for the industry; the ban on the planting of transgenic corn in the Constitution, March 2025, after the USMCA panel's ruling against the import ban of December 2024; the telecommunications law of July 2025 with its power to block platforms, softened; the no-re-election of deputies and senators from 2030 and the "anti-nepotism" rule; the 40-hour working week through Congress in 2025–26 for phasing in by 2030; the pension fund for the workers; the lists of "disinforming" media read out at the mañanera on 12 August 2026 and the boycott of TV Azteca the president called for on 26 May 2026, the network bankrupt since February |
| Legal system | Civil law of the Spanish and French codes with the American federal structure — the adversarial trials of the reform of 2008, the amparo of the citizen against the state since 1847; the death penalty abolished 2005; abortion decriminalized by the Supreme Court in September 2023 across the federation; same-sex marriage in all 32 entities since 2022; the cannabis ruling of 2021; the disappeared and the impunity of 95% of crimes the system's failure by every count |
| Local government | 31 governors and the head of government of Mexico City elected for six years, 22 of them of Morena and its allies; the 2,478 municipal presidents, about 30 of them killed since 2024; the Coahuila congress elected 7 June 2026; the two new parties registered 25 June 2026 |
| Defense | The Armed Forces of about 300,000 — the army and air force of the Secretariat of National Defense, the navy, and the National Guard of 130,000 under the army since 2024; the soldiers in the streets since 2006, at the airports, the customs, the Maya Train and the ports of the "militarization" the critics name and the "security" the government does; the special forces of Tapalpa; conscription by lottery for a year of Saturdays; no war since 1945; the American drones over the cartels' fields and the surveillance flights agreed |
| Foreign policy | The Estrada Doctrine of 1930, no judgment of other governments, bent by the century; the United States above all, the trade and the border; the EU's modernized trade agreement signed 22 May 2026; the oil to Cuba suspended 27 January 2026 to escape the U.S. tariff on Cuba's suppliers, the humanitarian aid kept; the asylum of the Ecuadorian vice president and the raid on the embassy in Quito of April 2024, the ties cut; the Iran team hosted for the World Cup on 25 May 2026 after Washington refused it in the war; the G20 and the OECD member of 1994, the Pacific Alliance, the CELAC; the Security Council seat of 2021–22 |
| United Nations | A founding member of 7 November 1945; the Security Council in 1946, 1980–81, 2002–03, 2009–10 and 2021–22; the Tlatelolco treaty of 1967 that made Latin America nuclear-free; Alfonso García Robles's Nobel of 1982 |
| Other memberships | The USMCA of 1 July 2020, NAFTA's heir; the OECD (1994); the G20; APEC; the Pacific Alliance with Chile, Colombia and Peru; the Organization of American States; the CELAC; the WTO (1995); the Rio Group; the 14 free trade agreements with 50 countries |
Economy
| GDP (nominal) | About US$1.9 trillion (2025, IMF) — the twelfth or thirteenth economy in the world, the second of Latin America after Brazil |
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| GDP per capita | About US$14,500 (2025) |
| GDP per capita (PPP) | About US$25,000 (2025) |
| GDP growth | About 1.5% in 2024, about 0.5% in 2025 under the tariffs and about 1% expected in 2026 — S&P's outlook cut to negative in May 2026; inflation about 3.7%; unemployment about 2.7%; the Bank of Mexico's rate about 6.5%; the peso at about 18 to the dollar, the strongest in years |
| Economy by sector | Services about 64%, industry about 32%, agriculture about 4% |
| Currency | Mexican peso (MXN) |
| Manufacturing and the trade | The largest exporter of Latin America — about US$650 billion of exports a year, 80% to the United States, whose largest trading partner Mexico has been since 2023, 16.3% of all U.S. imports in the first quarter of 2026, the record; the cars of Ford, GM, Stellantis, Nissan, Volkswagen, BMW and the Chinese, about 4 million a year, the seventh producer, the 25% tariff on the non-U.S. content; the electronics of Tijuana and Guadalajara, the aerospace of Querétaro, the medical devices of Tijuana, the appliances of Monterrey; the maquiladoras of the border since 1965; the nearshoring boom of 2023–24 and the tariff chill; the foreign investment at a record in the first quarter of 2026; the 50% steel tariff and the mills at 55% |
| Oil | Pemex, the state company of the expropriation of 18 March 1938 — about 1.6 million barrels a day from the 3.4 million of 2004, the debt of about US$100 billion, the largest of any oil company, the losses, the Dos Bocas refinery of 2022 and its fire of 17 March 2026 with five dead, the director Víctor Rodríguez resigned in May 2026; the constitutional reform of 2024 that made Pemex and the electricity company CFE "public companies" of the state; Carlos Slim's purchase of the sanctioned Lukoil's fields of January 2026 |
| Silver and the mines | The world's largest producer of silver, about 6,000 metric tons a year, the mines of Fresnillo and Peñoles in Zacatecas, the silver of the Spanish empire's three centuries; copper of Grupo México at Cananea; gold; the lithium of Sonora reserved to the state's LitioMx since 2022; the open-pit mining banned by the reform of 2025 |
| Agriculture | The avocados of Michoacán, the world's largest producer and exporter, US$3 billion a year to the United States for the Super Bowl; the tomatoes, berries, peppers and limes of the north; corn, the sacred crop, the tortilla's 60 kinds and the imports of the yellow; the tequila of Jalisco's 600 million liters and the mezcal of Oaxaca; beer, the largest exporter in the world, Corona and Modelo; sugar; the cattle of the north shut out of the U.S. by the screwworm; the Mennonite cheese |
| Tourism | About 45 million foreign visitors a year, the sixth most visited country in the world — Cancún and the Riviera Maya of 30 million passengers at the airport, Los Cabos, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico City, Oaxaca; the World Cup of 2026 with 13 matches at Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey; the cruise ships of Cozumel, the busiest cruise port on earth |
| Remittances | About US$62 billion in 2025, the second income after the exports, from the migrants of the United States to the villages of Michoacán, Jalisco, Guanajuato and Oaxaca; the record of US$65 billion in 2024 and the fall of 2025 with the deportations; the U.S. tax of 1% since 2026 |
| Public finances | Public debt about 52% of GDP; the deficit cut from 5.7% in 2024, the year of the Maya Train, to about 4%; the social programs of about 800 billion pesos, the pensions of the elderly, the students' grants, the "Sowing Life" trees; Carlos Slim of América Móvil the richest man of Latin America; the Bolsa; the informality; the credit rating of Baa2 and BBB with the negative outlooks |
| Income classification | Upper-middle income (World Bank); an OECD member since 1994 |
Transport & infrastructure
| Main airports | Mexico City International Airport, Benito Juárez, about 45 million passengers, the busiest of Latin America; Felipe Ángeles at Santa Lucía, the army-built airport of 2022 for the overflow; Cancún, about 30 million; Guadalajara; Monterrey; Tijuana with its bridge to San Diego; Los Cabos; the airports run by the navy since 2023 |
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| Airlines | Aeroméxico, of 1934, the flag carrier and SkyTeam member, back on the New York exchange in 2025; Volaris, the largest by passengers; Viva; Mexicana, the state airline relaunched in December 2023 by the army after the collapse of 2010; the U.S. cuts to the routes of 2025 in the airport quarrel |
| Main ports | Manzanillo, the largest Pacific port of Mexico, about 4 million containers, the door of the Asian trade; Lázaro Cárdenas of the steel and the cars; Veracruz of 1519, the oldest port of the Americas, the Gulf's door; Altamira; Ensenada; Tampico; Cozumel of the cruise ships |
| Railways | About 27,000 km (16,800 mi) of standard gauge — freight privatized in 1997–98 to Ferromex of Grupo México and to Kansas City Southern de México, since 2023 part of Canadian Pacific Kansas City, the first railway from Canada to Mexico; the Maya Train of 1,554 km around the Yucatán opened 15 December 2023 for 500 billion pesos, the army its operator; the Interoceanic Railway of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec of 2023, the "dry canal" from Salina Cruz to Coatzacoalcos; the Insurgente train of Mexico City to Toluca of 2023–24; the Mexico City Metro of 1969, twelve lines and the busiest in the Americas after New York; the passenger lines of the Sheinbaum plan to Querétaro and the north under construction |
| Roads | About 400,000 km (250,000 mi), the largest network of Latin America, about 175,000 paved; the toll highways of 10,000 km, the Mexico–Querétaro and the Sun Highway to Acapulco; the cartels' roadblocks of February 2026; the border bridges of Laredo, the busiest trade crossing of the continent |
| Landmarks | The Estadio Azteca of 1966 at 2,240 m, renamed Banorte and reopened 28 March 2026 for the World Cup, the only stadium to have hosted three World Cups and two finals; the Zócalo; the Angel of Independence; the Chapultepec castle; the Torre Latinoamericana; the desalination plant of Rosarito begun 31 March 2026, the largest of Latin America |
History in dates
| c. 8000 BC | Maize domesticated in the Tehuacán valley |
|---|---|
| c. 1500 BC | The Olmec of San Lorenzo — the mother culture, the colossal heads |
| c. 100 | Teotihuacan — the Pyramid of the Sun; 100,000 people by 500 |
| 250–900 | The Maya of Palenque, Calakmul and Chichén Itzá |
| 1325 | Tenochtitlan founded — the eagle on the cactus |
| 1428 | The Triple Alliance — the Aztec Empire |
| 1519 | Cortés lands at Veracruz, 22 April |
| 1521 | Tenochtitlan falls, 13 August |
| 1531 | The Virgin of Guadalupe at Tepeyac, December |
| 1551 | The Royal and Pontifical University — the first of North America |
| 1810 | The Cry of Dolores, 16 September — Hidalgo |
| 1821 | Independence, 27 September |
| 1824 | The federal republic, 4 October |
| 1836 | Texas lost — the Alamo, San Jacinto |
| 1848 | Guadalupe Hidalgo, 2 February — half the territory to the United States |
| 1857 | The liberal Constitution; the Reform of Juárez |
| 1862 | Puebla, 5 May |
| 1867 | Maximilian shot at Querétaro, 19 June |
| 1876 | The Porfiriato, to 1911 |
| 1910 | The Revolution, 20 November — Madero |
| 1917 | The Constitution, 5 February |
| 1919 | Zapata killed, 10 April |
| 1926 | The Cristero War, to 1929 |
| 1929 | The party of the state — the PRI of 1946 |
| 1938 | The oil expropriated, 18 March |
| 1953 | Women vote, 17 October |
| 1968 | Tlatelolco, 2 October; the Olympics, 12 October |
| 1970 | The first World Cup |
| 1985 | The earthquake, 19 September |
| 1994 | NAFTA and the Zapatistas, 1 January; Colosio killed, 23 March; the peso crisis, December |
| 2000 | Fox — the PRI out after 71 years, 2 July |
| 2006 | Calderón's war on the cartels, December |
| 2014 | Ayotzinapa, 26 September — the 43 |
| 2018 | López Obrador elected, 1 July |
| 2020 | The USMCA, 1 July |
| 2023 | Otis, 25 October; the Maya Train, 15 December |
| 2024 | Sheinbaum elected, 2 June; the judicial reform, 15 September; president, 1 October |
| 2025 | The cartels "terrorists," 20 February; the 29 transferred, 27 February; the judges elected, 1 June; the new court, 1 September; Manzo killed, 1 November |
| 2026 | El Mencho killed, 22 February; the CIA deaths, 19 April; Rocha indicted, 29 April; the "piñata" speech, 31 May; the World Cup, 11 June – 19 July; the USMCA review, 1 July; El Mayo's life sentence, 20 July; the 10% tariff, 24 July |
Records & firsts
| The most Spanish speakers of any country | About 130 million |
|---|---|
| The most World Heritage sites in the Americas | 35 |
| The world's largest producer of silver | About 6,000 metric tons |
| The world's largest exporter of beer and avocados | Corona; Michoacán |
| The first social constitution | 5 February 1917 |
| The only three-time World Cup host | 1970, 1986, 2026 |
| The most crossed border on earth | 3,155 km |
| The largest diaspora in the world | 38 million in the United States |
| The first woman president | 1 October 2024 |
| The largest vote ever for a candidate | 35.9 million, 2024 |
| The first country to elect all its judges | 1 June 2025 |
| The stoutest tree on earth | The Tree of Tule, 14 m across |
| The dollar sign | From the Mexican peso |
| The largest city of North America | Mexico City, 22 million |
Frequently asked questions
What is the official name of Mexico?
The United Mexican States — Estados Unidos Mexicanos — the federal republic of 31 states and Mexico City that declared its independence from Spain on 16 September 1810 with the Cry of Dolores, won it on 27 September 1821, and took its present form and name in the federal Constitution of 1824; the Constitution of 5 February 1917, born of the Revolution, is the one in force. The name is the Aztecs' own: the Mexica, the people who founded Tenochtitlan on an island of Lake Texcoco in 1325 where they found the eagle on the cactus, gave their name to the valley, the city and the country; a plan of 2012 to make "Mexico" the sole official name never passed.
What is the capital of Mexico?
Mexico City — Ciudad de México, CDMX — the largest city of North America, built on the drained bed of Lake Texcoco at 2,240 m on the ruins of the Aztec Tenochtitlan that Cortés took in 1521: about 9.2 million people in the federal entity, the Federal District until 2016, and about 22 million in the metropolis that spills into the State of Mexico and Hidalgo, on the Zócalo, the second-largest square in the world, the Metropolitan Cathedral, the National Palace and the Templo Mayor. Guadalajara, the city of the mariachi and the tequila, Monterrey of the steel and the money, Puebla, Tijuana on the border and Ciudad Juárez follow.
How big is Mexico, and how many people live there?
About 1,964,375 km² (758,449 sq mi) — the fourteenth-largest country in the world and the third of Latin America after Brazil and Argentina, three times the size of Texas, nearly two-thirds the size of India — between the United States, whose border of 3,155 km is the most crossed on earth, and Guatemala and Belize, with the Pacific on one side and the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean on the other. The census of 2020 counted 126,014,024 people; the National Population Council estimates about 131 million for 2026, the tenth-largest population in the world and the largest of any Spanish-speaking country, four in five in the cities, with some 38 million more of Mexican origin across the border in the United States.
What are the highest and lowest points of Mexico?
The Pico de Orizaba — Citlaltépetl, the star mountain — 5,636 m (18,491 ft), the dormant volcano on the line of Puebla and Veracruz, the highest peak of North America after Denali and Logan; and the Laguna Salada of Baja California, a dry lake bed 10 m (33 ft) below the sea. The Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt holds Popocatépetl, 5,426 m and smoking over the capital, Iztaccíhuatl and the Nevado de Toluca; the Sierra Madre Occidental and Oriental frame the central plateau, the Copper Canyon of Chihuahua is deeper than the Grand Canyon, and the Yucatán has no rivers at all, only the cenotes of the crater that killed the dinosaurs.
What currency does Mexico use?
The Mexican peso (ISO code MXN, $), of 100 centavos, the heir of the Spanish dollar of eight reales struck at the Mexico City mint since 1535, the first global currency and the origin of the dollar sign; the "new peso" of 1 January 1993 dropped three zeros from the old, and the currency has traded around 18 to the U.S. dollar in 2025–26, the strong "super peso" of the exporters' complaint. Clocks keep Central Time, UTC−6, in most of the country, with Pacific and Mountain zones in the northwest and the Southeastern zone of Quintana Roo, the summer time abolished in 2022; Mexico drives on the right.
Who governs Mexico?
President Claudia Sheinbaum, head of state and government since 1 October 2024 for the single six-year term the Constitution allows — the first woman in the office in the republic's two centuries, the climate scientist and former mayor of Mexico City who won the election of 2 June 2024 with 59.76 percent, the largest vote ever cast for a candidate, and whose Morena party and its allies hold two-thirds of both houses of Congress. Her second year has been the year of the cartel war's bloodiest blow, the killing of the Jalisco cartel's chief "El Mencho" by the army with American intelligence on 22 February 2026, and of the hardest words yet with Washington — over tariffs, over the USMCA review at which the United States refused to extend the treaty, over the CIA officers who died in an operation in Chihuahua and the U.S. indictment of a sitting governor. "Mexico is not anyone's piñata," she told 130,000 people on 31 May 2026. The midterm elections are due on 6 June 2027.
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