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United Mexican StatesEstados Unidos Méxicanos
Flag Coat of arms
Anthem: Himno Nacional Mexicano
Capitaland largest city	Mexico City
Official languages	None at federal level Spanish (de facto)
Government	Federal Republic
• President	Vicente Fox
Independence From Spain
• Declared	September 16, 1810
• Recognized	September 27, 1821
• Water (%)	2.5%
Population
• 2005 estimate	107,029,000 (11th)
• 2000 census	101,879,171
GDP (PPP)	2005 estimate
• Total	$1.073 trillion (13th)
• Per capita	$10,186 (64th)
HDI (2003)	0.814 very high (53rd)
Currency	Peso (MXN)
Time zone	UTC-8 to -6
• Summer (DST)	varies
Calling code	52
ISO 3166 code	MX
Internet TLD	.mx

The United Mexican States (Spanish: Estados Unidos Méxicanos), generally known as Mexico (Spanish: México) is a country located in North America, bordered at the north by the United States, and at the south by Guatemala and Belize, in Central America. It is the northernmost and westernmost country in Latin America, and also the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world.

The official name is Estados Unidos Méxicanos, which translates as the United Mexican States. The term State of Mexico (Estado de México) does not refer to the country, but only to one state within Mexico, located near the center of the country adjacent to the Federal District.

The site of advanced Amerindian civilizations, the land that currently makes up Mexico existed under Spanish rule for three centuries before achieving independence early in the 19th century. A devaluation of the peso in late 1994 threw Mexico into economic turmoil, triggering the worst recession in over half a century. The nation continues to make an impressive recovery. 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 Amerindian population in the impoverished southern states. Elections held in July 2000 marked the first time since the 1910 Mexican Revolution that the opposition defeated the party in government, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and Vicente Fox of the National Action Party (PAN) was sworn in as President on 1 December 2000.

Mexico is a powerful and influential neighbor of the United States, in terms of trade, culture, diplomacy, and a history of emigration of Mexicans into the U.S. since the early 1900's.

Mexican Americans are gaining momentum in political matters as the largest segment of the 44 million Hispanic-American citizens in the U.S. indicates the importance of Mexicans in other countries. The continuous close contact with their ancestral homeland, the Mexican American culture will further have an impact in U.S.-Mexican and Latin American relations. And in like kind the influence of American culture is just as great south of the border.

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Government and politics

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The 1917 Constitution provides for a federal republic with powers separated into independent executive, legislative, and judicial branches. Historically, the executive is the dominant branch, with power vested in the president, who promulgates and executes the laws of the Congress. Congress has played an increasingly important role since 1997 when opposition parties first formed a majority in the legislature.

Government and politics of Mexico takes place in a framework of a federal presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the President of Mexico is both head of state and head of government, and of a pluriform multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. The President is both the head of state and head of government, as well as the commander-in-chief of the military. The president is elected directly from eligible votes and serves for six years, called a sexenio. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the two chambers of the Congress of the Union. The powers of the congress include the right to pass laws, impose taxes, declare war, approve the national budget, approve or reject treaties and conventions made with foreign countries, and ratify diplomatic appointments. The Senate addresses all matters concerning foreign policy, approves international agreements, and confirms presidential appointments. The Chamber of Deputies, addresses all matters pertaining to the government's budget and public expenditures.

The Judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.

There are three important political parties in Mexico:

• PAN: the National Action Party (Partido Acción Nacional). The PAN is a conservative liberal party. President Vicente Fox is a member of the PAN.
• PRI: the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional). When it was founded it was somewhat socialist, currently it's a liberal party.
• PRD: the Party of the Democratic Revolution (Partido de la Revolución Democrática). The PRD is a left wing, somewhat socialist party. Important members of the PRD are Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, the son of Lázaro Cárdenas, and Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

The Institutional Revolutionary Party (Spanish: Partido Revolucionario Institucional or PRI) is the Mexican political party that wielded hegemonic power in the country—under a succession of names—for more than 70 years. New hopes for democratic development were given rise by the electoral defeat of the long governing political party, PRI, in 2000, by Vicente Fox from the center-right party PAN. In 2006, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa of the PAN faced Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the PRD in a very close, and still disputed, election. As of August 2006, the results of this election remain disputed and a series of leftist protests remain underway despite the calls of President Vicente Fox for an end to the protests. See Mexican general election 2006 controversies.

Administrative divisions

See also: Mexican state name etymologies.

Mexico is divided into 31 states (estados) and a federal district. Each state has its own constitution and its citizens elect a governor as well as representatives to their respective state congresses.

The Federal District is a special political division in Mexico, where the national capital, Mexico City, is located. It enjoys more limited local rule than the nation's "free and sovereign states": only since 1997 have its citizens been able to elect a Head of Government. Much of the capital city's metropolitan area overflows the limits of the Federal District.

Largest cities

The following is a list of the principal Metropolitan Areas of Mexico in order of population as reported in the 2005 census :

Economy

According to the World Bank, Mexico ranks 13th in the world in regard to GDP and has the third largest per capita income in Latin America just after Argentina and Chile, and it is firmly established as an upper middle-income country. Since the economic crisis of 1994–1995 the country has made an impressive economic recovery. According to the director for Colombia and Mexico of the World Bank, the population below the poverty level has decreased from 24.2% to 17.6% in the general population and from 42% to 27.9% in rural areas from 2000-2004 .

Mexico has a mixed economy that recently entered the trillion dollar class. It contains a mixture of modern and outmoded industry and agriculture, increasingly dominated by the private sector. The number of state-owned enterprises in Mexico has fallen from more than 1,000 in 1982 to fewer than 100 in 2005. Recent administrations have expanded competition in seaports, railroads, telecommunications, electricity generation, natural gas distribution, and airports. Mexico is also the fourth largest oil producer in the world.

A strong export sector helped to cushion the economy's decline in 1995 and led the recovery in 1996–1999. Private consumption became the leading driver of growth, accompanied by increased employment and higher wages. Its proximity to the world's largest automobile market has meant that companies like Volkswagen and others have located assembly plants in Northern Mexico to serve that market. In asddition there is a large television industry providing programming for both Mexicans and the large Spanish speaking population (44 million out of 285 million) in the United States.

Mexico has entered a new era of macroeconomic stability. Following a 4.1% growth in 2004, real GDP grew 3% in 2005. According to the Bank of Mexico recent economic developments include a record-low inflation of 3.3% in 2005, low interest rates, a lower External debt to GDP ratio (8.9%) and a strong peso. Trade with the United States and Canada has tripled since NAFTA was implemented in 1994.

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

Mexico still needs to overcome many structural problems as it strives to modernize its economy and raise living standards. Ongoing economic concerns include low real wages, underemployment for a large segment of the population, inequitable income distribution (top 20% of income earners account for 55% of income), and few advancement opportunities for the largely Amerindian population in the impoverished southern states. If municipalities of Mexico were classified as countries in the HDI World Ranking, San Pedro Garza Garcia, and Benito Juárez, one of the districts in the Distrito Federal, would have a similar level of development to that of Italy, whereas Metlatonoc, Guerrero, would have an HDI similar to that of Malawi .

The country has continued to struggle with such issues as economic control and development, especially with the petroleum sector and the evolution of trade relations with the United States. Corruption at certain levels of the administration and crime continue to be chronic problems.

Demographics

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

Mexico is a racially and ethnically diverse country. Its three main ethnic groups are mestizos (mixed European and Amerindian), Amerindians, and Europeans. According to the CIA World Factbook, mestizos account for 60%, Amerindians for 30%, whites for 9%, and others 1%. Whites are mostly Spanish descendants, a great number are families from Spain arrived after the Francisco Franco regime in the late 1930's. Though there are those descended from past or recent immigration (comparably small in ratio to the Mexican population) of Germans, Italians, French, Portuguese, British, Swedish, Irish, and also white Americans, as about 800,000 American expatriates live in Mexico as retirees or businessmen. The "others" is largely comprised of Afro-Mexicans, Middle Easterner, and East Asian. A large Chinese community exists for Mexicali, Baja California and a historic small influx of Filipinos to Mexico since the late 16th century, plus a number of Mexican cowboys of Hawaiian and Filipino blood in Hawaii are part of the cross-culture legacy.

Mexico is also home for many other Latin American emigrants, including most numerously Argentines — Mexico being home to the largest Argentine population outside of Argentina, an estimated 55,000 in 2005. — Cubans, Brazilians, Chileans, other South and Central Americans. The PRI governments in power for most of the 20th century had a policy of granting asylum to fellow Latin Americans fleeing political persecution in their home countries. Large numbers of Chileans arrived in Mexico and nearby California, especially in the 1850's gold rush though California was annexed by the U.S. Over 100,000 Central American immigrants came legally in Mexico since the 1970's, while illegal entries hardly get passed through the southern border with Guatemala, mainly are destined for the United States.

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

Judging by the proportion of people speaking indigenous languages, the states with the highest proportion of indigenous people are Yucatán (37.3%), Oaxaca (37.1%), Chiapas (24.6%) and Quintana Roo (23%). The states of Aguascalientes (0.2%), Coahuila (0.2%), Zacatecas (0.2%) and Nuevo León (0.5%) have the lowest proportion of speakers of indigenous languages (INEGI, 2004). The large-scale German settlement period of the mid 19th century in Northeast Mexico has blended in with the local culture, thus usage of the German language has declined there. The German and Northern Mexican cultural bond with Texas, U.S. remains alive.

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

Ironically, because of its reputation as a major source of undocumeted immigrants to the United States in el Norte, Mexico itself experiences this kind of immigration from Central America due to similar differences in wages and poverty between countries of origin and Mexico; analogous to the economic differential between the U.S. and Mexico. Many undocumented Central American immigrants in Mexico try to ultimately enter the United States, though some decide to stay.

Life expectancy in Mexico increased from 34.7 for men and 33 years for women in 1930 to 72.1 for men and 77.1 years for women in 2002. The states with the highest life expectancy are Baja California (75.9 years) and Nuevo Leon (75.6 years). The Federal District has a life expectancy of the same level as Baja California. The lowest levels are found in Chiapas (72.9), Oaxaca (73.2) and Guerrero (73.2 years), although the first two have had the highest increase (19.9 and 22.3% respectively).

The mortality rate in 1970 was 9.7/1000 people and by 2001 the rate had dropped to 4.9/1000 for men and 3.8/1000 for women. The most common reasons for death in 2001 were heart problems (14.6% for men 17.6% for women) and Cancer (11% for men and 15.8% for women).

Culture

Mexicans are people oriented, and they will put friends, family and relatives before work or business matters. They are not estoic when it comes to passion for the honour of their mothers, sisters, wives or daughters. Family values in Mexico was preserved, even in the era of industrialization and social change, because the traditional family serves as protection and release from the troubling outside world. Religion has been a factor in the country's high birth rate and opposition of birth control, until recently the government supports the use of birth control acceptable to a mostly Catholic society.

Social stratification and racism

Mexico boasts a wealth of regional cultures that is unique in the Americas. Every region in the country has a distinct culture, languages and arts that create a huge mosaic as a whole.

Traditionally, Mexicans have struggled with the creation of a united identity. The issue is the main topic of "Labyrinth of Solitude" by Mexican nobel prize winner Octavio Paz. Mexico is a large country, therefore having many cultural traits found only in some parts of the country. The north of Mexico is the least culturally diverse and more americanized of them all, making it a less exciting destination for foreign travelers. Central and southern Mexico is where many well-known traditions find their origin, therefore the people from this area are in a way the most traditional, but their collective personality can't be generalized. People from Puebla, for instance, are thought to be conservative and reserved, and just a few kilometers away, the people from Veracruz have the fame of being very outgoing and liberal. Those living in México City are believed to be poshy or preppy, or dirty and crime-prone if talking about the poor. The regiomontanos (from Monterrey) are thought to be stingy and cocky regardless of their social status. Different accents are used in almost every state in Mexico, making it fairly easy to distinguish the origin of someone by the distinct use of language in every of them.

Indigenous people are likely to be perceived as inferior, even though this rarely reaches the level of aggressive racism. It's a rarity to see native Mexicans in high positions anywhere. This hidden racism is latent in the use of the word "indio" as an insult for the darker skinned, which is even used between indigeneous people to offend each other. Racism against those of African ancestry is said less prevalent than in the U.S., but some African-Mexicans have protested against negative portrayals and racial stereotypes, a few originate from reruns of U.S. movies and television made in the 1950's.

The derogatory term naco (bad-tasted), was forged by the middle and upper class Mexicans to refer to people of low class (often including loud U.S. tourists with a lack of cultural tact and poor morals). The term allegedly comes from the word totonaco, which is one of the ethnic groups in Valle de Mexico. Its use has been made popular even among the poorest classes. Mexicans differ in opinion about the meaning of the word. Some would use it for a person who dresses in a tacky or tasteless manner, others use it to mean a person that speaks in a non educated manner, some use it to refer to the natives, some to the poor classes, and other for people with less education or culture and other ideology.

The term fresa (preppy), is in some terms the opposite of naco, and it is not always derogatory and means always some relative high economical status of the person termed in that way. Traditionally, people with more European looks and belonging to the middle or high classes are called fresas. Fresa in Mexico is also generally directed to describe a young woman that dresses well and likes objects that are considered adorable, for example a Hello Kitty doll. In general, a "fresa"-being is followed by a way of speaking and dressing. Nuances in the meaning are a complex subject. The term has been made popular in other Latin American countries since Mexico is the largest exporter in the region of TV productions.

Another term "gordita" translates to "little fat girl" is not offensive and carries positive connotations, because to some men in Mexican society, a large-bodied woman is considered beautiful and attractive, and the somewhat true portrayals of body size of women in rural areas and from full-blooded American Indian tribes. Upper-class Mexican teen girls are influenced by U.S. pop culture's message of "thin means pretty" to a point when teen girls tried to "slim down" with negative health consequences.

Mexicans living in the United States, legally or illegally, are looked down upon by most middle class and high class Mexicans, since they feel they are creating a bad reputation for the rest of the Mexicans. Many terms that refer to Mexicans in the U.S. exist, but chicano or pocho are the most popular. In central and southern Mexico, these terms are used as a derogatory description. The majority of Mexican men or families that pursue a life in the U.S. come from the lowest stratus of society in Mexico, and have created a culture unique to them.

Standard of living

The standard of living in Mexico is higher than most of other countries in Latin America drawing people from places like Argentina, Brazil or Cuba to the country in search for better opportunities. With the recent economic growth, most middle and high income families live in single houses, commonly found within a walled village, called "fraccionamiento". The reason these places are the most popular among the middle and upper classes is that they offer a sense of security, since most of them are within walls and have survelliance, and living in one also provides social status, due to the infrastructure of most of these villages. Swimming pools or golf clubs, and/or some other commodities are found in these fraccionamientos. Houses inside them tend to be of higher quality, and larger than other homes, most of them with at least three or four bedrooms and even maid quarters and laundry. However, the poorer mexicans live a harsh life, although they share with the other the importance they grant to family, friends and cultural habits. Poverty is specially poignant in the countryside.

In the larger towns, hiring housekeepers or maids is not as common as in the past, but there are still many families that are willing to pay a person, generally a middle aged woman, to come help with the house chores once or twice a week. "Muchacha" or "chacha" are the words used to call them. The gender roles for women in Mexico are generally strict, although this has lessened in the country's upper-classes influenced by Western cultural trends and some Mexican women are challenging patriarchal societal mores where males continue to practice "machismo", a major Latin American cultural norm (yet is stereotyped) of men are strong, self-reliant and aggressive.

Leisure

Dancing and singing are commonly part of family gatherings, bringing the old and young together, no matter what kind of music is being played, like cumbia, salsa, merengue or the more Mexican banda. Dancing is a strong part of the culture, and visitors will find that even people who were thought to be unlikely to dance, do so. Singing enjoys the same popularity and mexicans will sing when they are depressed, in a cantina to a mariachi song, or when they are very happy.

Mexicans in places like Guadalajara, Puebla, Monterrey, Mexico City, and most middle sized cities, enjoy a great variety of options for leisure. Shopping centers are a favorite among families, since there has been an increasing number of new malls that cater to people of all ages and interests. A large number of them, have multiplex cinemas, international and local restaurants, food courts, cafes, bars, bookstores and most of the international renowned clothing brands are found too. Mexicans are prone to travel within their own country, making short weekend trips to a neighbouring city or town.

Broadcast media

Two of the major television networks based in Mexico are Televisa and TV Azteca. Soap operas (telenovelas) are translated to many languages and seen all over the world with renown names like Verónica Castro, Lucía Méndez, Lucero, and Thalía. Even Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna from Y tu mamá también and current Zegna model have appeared in some of them. Some of their TV shows are modeled after American counterparts like Family Feud (100 Mexicanos Dijeron or "A hundred Mexicans said" in Spanish), Big Brother, American Idol, Saturday Night Live and others. Nationwide news shows like Las Noticias por Adela on Televisa resemble a hybrid between Donahue and Nightline. Local news shows are modeled after American counterparts like the Eyewitness News and Action News formats. Border cities receive American television and radio stations, while satellite and cable subscription is common for the upper-classes in major cities, often watch American movies and TV shows.

Sports

The favorite sport remains world football (soccer), while baseball is also popular, especially in the Gulf of Mexico and the border states in the NW. The season runs from March to July with playoffs held in August.

Exhibitions like bull fighting are still practiced and professional wrestling as shown on shows like Lucha Libre. American football is practiced at the major universities like UNAM.

Rugby is played at the amateur level throughout the country with the majority of clubs in Mexico City and others in Monterrey, Guadalajara, Celaya, Guanajuato and Oaxaca.

The national sport of Mexico is Charreria. Ancient Mexicans played a ball game which still exists in Northwest Mexico (Sinaloa, the game is called Ulama), though it is not a popular sport any more. Bullfighting are also a popular sport in the country. Almost all large cities have bullrings. La Monumental in Mexico city, has the largest bullring in the world, which seats 55,000 people.

Languages

Compared to the other North American nations, the Mexican Constitution does not mention the existence of an "official language" just like the United States but unlike Canada. Although Spanish is considered to be the "common" language of the country, used in all sorts of documents and spoken by the majority of the population. About 7% of the population speak an Amerindian language. The government officially recognizes 62 Amerindian languages. Of these, Nahuatl and Maya are each spoken by 1.5 million, while others, such as Lacandon, are spoken by fewer than 100. The Mexican government has promoted and established bilingual education programs in indigenous rural communities. A few tribes originally from the United States settled in Mexico in the 19th century, such as the Kickapoo and the Cherokee both came to the state of Coahuila to escape U.S. army raids, are said to maintain language and culture to a certain extent.

Although Spanish is the common language of Mexico, English is widely used in business. As a result, English language skills are much in demand and can lead to an increase in the salary offered by a company. It is also spoken along the U.S. border, in big cities, and in beach resorts. Also, the majority of private schools in Mexico offer bilingual education, both in Spanish and English. English is the main language spoken in U.S. expatriate communities such as those along the coast of Baja California, Jalisco and the town of San Miguel de Allende. The irony of English language is understood well in Mexico, but for Mexican immigrants retain the Spanish language in the U.S. is strikingly observed, thus it seems monolingual rules don't always apply.

With respect to other European languages brought by immigrants, the case of Chipilo, in the state of Puebla, is unique, and has been documented by several linguists like Carolyn McKay. The immigrants that founded the city of Chipilo in 1882 came from the Veneto region in northern Italy, and thus spoke a northern variant of the Venetian dialect. While other European immigrants assimilated into the Mexican culture, the people of Chipilo retained their language. Nowadays, most of the people who live in the city of Chipilo (and many of those who have migrated to other cities) still speak the unaltered Veneto dialect spoken by their great-grandparents making the Veneto dialect an unrecognized minority language in the city of Puebla. In Huatusco and Colonia Gonzalez, Veracruz, Veneto is still heard too. A similar case is that of the Plautdietsch language, spoken by the descendants of German and Dutch Mennonite immigrants in the states of Chihuahua and Durango. Other German communities lie in Puebla, Mexico City, Sinaloa and Chiapas, with the largest German school outside of Germany being in Mexico City (Alexander von Humboldt school), these represent the large German populations where they still try to preserve the German culture and language. Other strong German communities lie in Sinaloa (Mazatlan), Nuevo Leon, Chiapas (Tapachula) and other parts of Puebla (Nueva Necaxa) where the German culture and language have been preserved to different extents. French is also heard in the state of Veracruz in the cities of Jicaltepec, San Rafael and Mentideros, where the architecture and food is also very French. These French immigrants came from Haute-Saône département in France, especially from Champlitte and Borgonge. Another important French group were the "Barcelonette's" from the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence département, whom interestingly the whole town and surrounding towns immigrated specifically to Mexico to find jobs and work in merchandising, they are well known in Mexico City, Puebla, and Veracruz. Another important French village in Mexico is Santa Rosalía in Baja California Sur, where French language and culture/architecture are still found. Scandinavian languages and traditions can also be heard in Chihuahua, like Swedish and Norwegian in Nueva Escandinavia and other Scandinavian colonies in the north of the country. Russian is heard in the Baja California region of Valle de Guadalupe, thanks to the immigrants from southern Russia who settled these areas. They are the Molokans or "milk eaters", and they preserve their culture in Baja California, with the architecture in their houses and museums, they produce fine wine (Along with the large Italian community that lives near them) and their language and traditions, as well as dresses and festivities. Other Russians belong to a more recent wave of immigration from mainly Russia and Poland and the Ukraine along other Eastern Europeans, who settle mainly in Mexico City and Guadalajara. The wave of Armenians, Lebanese, Syrians and Greeks came to Mexico in the early 20th century, mainly settled in urban areas and Baja California in proximity to relatives in California, U.S. is one notable migration. Cornish dialect of Cornwall, England disappeared from Mexico in the state of Hidalgo in the early 20th century, especially in the cities of Pachuca and Real del Monte, but the Cornish culture still survives in the architecture, sports, food and many aspects of these cities in central Mexico.

Religion

Mexico is predominantly Roman Catholic (about 89% of the population). It is the nation with the second largest Catholic population, behind Brazil. Also, 6% of the population adheres to various Protestant/Restoration faiths (e.g. Latter-day Saints, Pentecostal), and the remaining 5% of the population adhering to other religions or professing no religion. Some of the country's Catholics (notably those of indigenous background) syncretize Catholicism with various elements of Aztec or Mayan religions. The Virgin of Guadalupe has long been a symbol enshrining the major aspirations of Mexican society. According to anthropologist Eric R. Wolf, the Guadalupe symbol links family, politics, and religion; the colonial past and the independent present; and the indigenous and the Mexican.

Judaism has been practiced in Mexico for centuries, and there are estimated to be more than 45,000-50,000 (some estimates say 60,000) Jews in Mexico today. Islam has about half a million adherents and is mostly practiced by Mexicans of Arab(mainly Syrian) and Turkish descent, though there very small percentage of the indigenous population in Chiapas state who adhere to Islam. Mexico has a very tiny Sikh population in the country of east Indian origin. The small number of Asian ethnic groups in Baja California has introduced Hinduism and Buddhism, but membership are generally small segments of Mexico's religious profile.

Education

Mexico has made impressive improvements in education in the last two decades. In 2004, the literacy rate was at 92.2%, and the youth literacy rate (ages 15-24) was 96%. Primary and secondary education (9 years) is free and mandatory. Even though different bilingual education programs have existed since the 1960s for the indigenous communities, after a constitution reform in the late 1990s, these programs have had a new thrust, and free text books are produced in more than a dozen indigenous languages.

In the 1970's, Mexico became the first country to establish a system of "distance-learning" . Schools that use this system are known as telesecundarias in Mexico. The Mexican distance learning secondary education is also transmitted to some Central American countries and to Colombia, and it is used in some southern regions of the United States as a method of bilingual education.

The two largest universities in Mexico are in Mexico City National Autonomous University of Mexico (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México), founded in 1551 and National Polytechnic Institute (IPN). Both universities are aimed to low wage and/or unemployed families, although it has students from different social strata. Quality in classrooms is not always ideal due to the fact that these institutions offer low wages to their faculty employess. The institutions are not self-sufficient. Several problems have arose with their semi-socialist system mainly in the area of high rates of absence from faculty employees and constant strikes by both, students and faculty. To obtain a 4-year degree students can spend up to ten years inside classrooms without penalty. The National Autonomous University of Mexico occupies the 96th place in the Top 200 World University Ranking published by The Times Higher Educaction Supplement in 2005, making it the first Spanish-speaking university in the world as well as the first Latin American university. The most important private universities are Mexico's Autonomous Technological Institute (ITAM), Universidad de las Américas Puebla (UDLAP), Monterrey's Technological and Higher Education Institute (ITESM), the Ibero-American University (Universidad Iberoamericana) and recently the Mexico Valley University (Universidad del Valle de Mexico UVM) had shown a very important growing, expanding its contact with other universities around the world.

Crime and poverty

There is a great economic polarization between the rich and the poor. There are also high crime rates in some parts of the country. Mexican drug cartels deliver more than half of the methamphetamine supply into the United States. The persistence of corruption at certain levels of the government and the police has prevented effective crime control efforts.

Both police and military corruption remain large problems in Mexico, and are mostly fuelled by the lucrative drug trade and migrant smuggling. Between January and June 2006, drug wars between cartels claimed 1,003 victims. The problem is especially dangerous in the border city of Tijuana and in the coastal city of Acapulco, which is a key link to the United States and México City.

Mexico City continues to experience major crime problems, particularly with street crime and kidnappings, and also a new type of kidnapping called "Express kidnapping" usually in which the victim is carjacked and beaten. It is estimated that there are between 2000 and 3000 crimes committed on the streets of Mexico City every day. Approximately 600 are reported (2000 average). Most of these are muggings, although the breakdown of the figures runs the gamut of criminal activity. Murders are not a significant part of the problem. These average around 2.5 per day which, given the size of the population, is relatively few. To put it in context, Washington, D.C. has a murder rate per capita around 5 times higher while San Pedro Sula, Honduras has a comparable murder rate but is one fortieth of the size.

Zapatista conflict

In the twentieth century people in Chiapas felt that their poor and largely agricultural area had been ignored by the government since enactment of the constitution of 1917. One of the chief complaints was that many Indian farmers were required to pay absentee landlords, despite the fact that since the 1920s the Mexican government had been promising the peasants ownership of the land they had farmed and lived on for generations. Article 27 of the 1917 constitution guaranteed indigenous peoples the right to an "ejido" or communal land. As Mexico restructured its economy after the 1982 financial crisis the state sector shrank due to privatizations and reorganization while land reform became less of a priority (it had long since been completed in most of the country, with Chiapas as a notable exception). The Mexican government under President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, an avid neoliberal, sought to modernize the traditionally closed and state dominated economy and increase its openness to trade. As part of this process Mexico repealed the constitutional guarantee of communally owned ejidos for rural communities. As the North American Free Trade Agreement came into effect on January 1, 1994, the indigenous peoples of Chiapas - struggling to make a living with few resources - felt increasingly left behind.

Such dissatisfaction led to the rise of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Zapatistas, or Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional), which began an armed rebellion against the federal government on January 1, 1994. In that year, thousands of supporters of the anti-globalization movement gathered in Chiapas, and it was from this meeting that the modern movement was born.

The Zapatistas were in principle a peaceful movement that was pushed to use the force of arms to guarantee the indigenous right to ejidos. Subcomandante Marcos, the face of the Zapatistas, succeeded in attracting international attention, with the innovative use of modern information and communication technologies for the struggle of the indigenous peoples in Chiapas.

In August 2003, the EZLN declared all Zapatista territory an autonomous government independent of Mexico. Since then, the armed EZLN has been laying low to some extent working on the government level to implement health care and educational institutions in poor rural indigenous communities.

Origin and history of the name

Mexico is named after its capital city, whose name comes from the Aztec city Mexico-Tenochtitlan that preceded it. The Mexi part of the name is from Mexitli, the war god, whose name was derived from metztli (the moon) and xictli (navel) and thus meant "navel (probably implying 'child') of the moon". So, Mexico is the home of the people of Mexitli (the Mexicas), co meaning "place" and ca meaning "people".

When the Spaniards conquered Mexico and imposed their own language (Spanish), they naturally did so according to the spelling rules of the Castilian language of the time. The Nahuatl language had a /ʃ/ sound (like English "shop"), and this sound was written x in Spanish (e.g. Ximénez); consequently, the letter x was used to write down words like Mexitli. Meanwhile, the letter j (or, rather, the letter i when used as a consonant, since j was not yet in common usage) was used for the /ʒ/ sound (as in "vision"), as was g before e or i. These old pronunciations of j and x are still found in Portuguese, Catalan and Ladino.

Over the centuries, the pronunciation of Spanish changed. Words like Ximénez, exercicio, xabón and perplexo started to be pronounced with a /x/ (this phonetic symbol represents the sound in the word "loch"). The /ʒ/ sound also started to be pronounced this way. The coalescence of the two phonemes into a single new one encouraged scholars to use the same letter for the sound, regardless of its origin (Spanish scholars have always tried to keep the orthography of their language faithful to the spoken tongue). It was j/g that was chosen. So, modern Spanish has ejercicio, ejército, jabón, perplejo, etc. (Another example is the old spelling of Don Quixote which is now Don Quijote. The old pronunciation is maintained in Portuguese "Quixote" and in French "Quichotte", and the English word "quixotic" maintains the spelling while pronouncing it with its English value.) In modern Spanish, x is used to represent the /ks/ consonant cluster in words derived from Latin or Greek. The standard pronunciation, however, in Spanish is /s/. For example, sexenio /se'senjo/, "six-year", from Latin sexennium /se'ksennjum/.

Proper nouns and their derivatives are optionally allowed to break this rule. Thus, although xabón is now incorrect and archaic, alongside many millions of people called "Jiménez", there also are plenty called "Giménez" or "Ximénez" — a matter of personal choice and tradition.

In Mexico, it has become almost a matter of national pride to maintain the x spelling in the name of the country. It is regarded as more authentic and less jarring to the reader's eye. Mexicans have tended to demand that other Spanish-speakers use this spelling, rather than following Spaniard rules, and the demand has largely been respected. The Real Academia Española states that both spellings are correct, and most dictionaries and guides recommend México first, and present Méjico as a variant. Today, even outside of the country, México is preferred over Méjico by ratios ranging from 15-to-1 (in Spain) to about 280-to-1 (in Costa Rica). Also, in the local placenames "Oaxaca" and "Xalapa" or former territories like "Texas", the x is pronounced as /x/; in places like "Xochimilco", however, the x represents a /ʃ/.

A cultural side-effect of the fact that Mexicans use México /'mexiko/ and Spaniards sometimes use Méjico to represent the same pronunciation. The mere act of using the j spelling is interpreted by some as a form of colonial aggression. On the other hand, some Peninsular scholars (such as Ramón Menéndez Pidal) preferred to apply the general spelling rule, arguing that the spelling with an x could encourage non-Mexicans to mispronounce México as /'meksiko/ (as is generally the case in the English-speaking world). Méjico on the other hand could easily be mispronounced as well, because the letter j stands for /ʒ/, /dʒ/ or /j/ in other languages.

In the Nahuatl language, from which the name originally derived, the name for Mexico is Mexihco (International Phonetic Alphabet /meː.ɕiʔ.ko/).

Further reading

• James D. Cockcroft, Mexico's Hope: An Encounter with Politics and History, 320 pages, Monthly Review Press 1999, ISBN 0853459258 – leftist view of Mexican history
• Enrique Krauze, Mexico: Biography of Power. A history of Modern Mexico 1810-1996, 896 pages – Perennial 1998, ISBN 0060929170 - standard work by a renowned Mexican author.
• Julia Preston and Samuel Dillon, Opening Mexico: The Making of a Democracy, Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2004, hardcover, 608 pages, ISBN 0374226687 – recent history since the Tlatelolco massacre of 1968 told by two journalists
• Joanne Hershfield, David R. Maciel, Mexico's Cinema: A Century of Film and Filmmakers, SR Books 1999, ISBN 0842026827 – comprehensive survey
• Michael C. Meyer, William H. Beezley, editors, The Oxford History of Mexico, 736 pages, Oxford University Press 2000, ISBN 0195112288 – 20 essays, also covers cultural history
• Kernecker, Herbert. "When in Mexico, Do as the Mexicans Do." In depth information about life in Mexico, including culture, history, economy, language and more in 176 comprehensive pages..ISBN 0844227838.
• San Cristobal : The Political climate - A brief description of the situation in the town of San Cristobal.
• Mexico - A description of Mexico's geographical situation by Ekaterina Zhdanova-Redman.
• The Zimmerman Telegram - A translation of the Zimmerman Telegram to English.

See also

Geography, history and politics

• Location of Mexico
• Foreign affairs of Mexico
• List of international trade topics
• List of cities in Mexico
• Military of Mexico
• U.S.-Mexico border
• Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, Mexico

Culture and education

• Culture of Mexico
• Education in Mexico
• List of universities in Mexico
• List of Mexicans
• Music of Mexico
• List of Latin American artists
• Sport in Mexico
• Postage stamps and postal history of Mexico

Communications and transportation

• Automóvil Panamericano
• Excélsior
• El Universal
• Reforma
• Universal Stereo
• Cars in Mexico
• Salón Internacional del Automóvil México
• Transportation in Mexico

Electronic commerce, technology and consumers

• Proyecto Norteamericano sobre Proteccion al Consumidor en Comercio Electronico (NACPEC)

Legal information and resources on electronic consumer commerce in Mexico, US, Canada and Europe

http://www.nacpec.org/es/

References

1. Template:Es icon "Advierten una reducción en el número de mexicanos que profesan la religión católica", El Informador, 11 August 2002. Retrieved 15 May 2006.

External links

• Public Opinion in Mexico
• All you need to know about Mexico's election

• Template:Wikitravel
• AXJ: Political Information about Mexico
• Encyclopaedia Britannica Mexico - Country Page
• Mexico main cities satellite views
• 1837 Map of Texas, Mexico, and the U.S. From Texas Tides

Government

• Presidencia: Presidency of the Republic
• Template:Es icon Gob.mx: Governmental portal (in Spanish)
• Template:Es icon Directorio.gob.mx: Official web directory of the Mexican Presidency (in Spanish)
• Template:Es icon Cámara de Diputados: Chamber of Deputies (in Spanish)
• Template:Es icon Cámara de Senadores: Senate

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