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Jul 25, 2023 · Mexico, located in the southern part of North America, spans an area of 1,972,550 sq. km (761,610 sq. mi) and exhibits a diverse array of geographical features.The country borders the United States to the north, Guatemala and Belize to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west, and the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea to the east.
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Mexico, country of southern North America and the third largest country in Latin America, after Brazil and Argentina. Mexican society is characterized by extremes of wealth and poverty, with a limited middle class wedged between an elite cadre of landowners and investors on the one hand and masses of rural and urban poor on the other. But in spite of the challenges it faces as a developing country, Mexico is one of the chief economic and political forces in Latin America. It has a dynamic industrial base, vast mineral resources, a wide-ranging service sector, and the world’s largest population of Spanish speakers—about two and a half times that of Spain or Colombia. As its official name suggests, the Estados Unidos Mexicanos (United Mexican States) incorporates 31 socially and physically diverse states and the Federal District.
More than half of the Mexican people live in the centre of the country, whereas vast areas of the arid north and the tropical south are sparsely settled. Migrants from impoverished rural areas have poured into Mexico’s cities, and nearly four-fifths of Mexicans now live in urban areas. Mexico City, the capital, is one of the most populous cities and metropolitan areas in the world. Mexico has experienced a series of economic booms leading to periods of impressive social gains, followed by busts, with significant declines in living standards for the middle and lower classes. The country remains economically fragile despite the forging of stronger ties with the United States and Canada through the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Mexico’s urban growing pains are in sharp counterpoint to the traditional lifestyles that prevail in more-isolated rural areas. In states such as Oaxaca or Chiapas, small communal villages remain where indigenous peasants live much as their ancestors did. The cultural remnants of great pre-Columbian civilizations, such as Teotihuacán or the Mayan pyramids at Chichén Itzá and Tulum, provide a contrast to colonial towns such as Taxco or Querétaro. In turn, these towns appear as historical relics when compared with the modern metropolis of Mexico City. Yet even the bustling capital city, which has been continually built and rebuilt on the rubble of past civilizations, reveals Mexico’s wide range of social, economic, and cultural struggles. As the renowned Mexican poet and intellectual Octavio Paz observed,
Past epochs never vanish completely, and blood still drips from all their wounds, even the most ancient. Sometimes the most remote or hostile beliefs and feelings are found together in one city or one soul, or are superimposed like [pre-Columbian] pyramids that almost always conceal others.
It is this tremendous cultural and economic diversity, distributed over an enormously complex and varied physical environment, that gives Mexico its unique character.
Britannica Quiz
Sharing a common border throughout its northern extent with the United States, Mexico is bounded to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean, to the east by the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, and to the southeast by Guatemala and Belize. Mexico also administers such islands and archipelagoes as the Tres Marías in the Pacific and Cozumel and Mujeres off the coast of the Yucatán Peninsula. Including these insular territories, the roughly triangular country covers an area about three times the size of Texas. While it is more than 1,850 miles (3,000 km) across from northwest to southeast, its width varies from less than 135 miles (217 km) at the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to more than 1,200 miles (1,900 km) in the north.
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Apr 27, 2022 · Central America. According to the geographic definition of continent, Central America is not a continent. The name exists to designate the “ southernmost region of North America, lying between Mexico and South America .”. Central America includes Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama.
Mexico is located between latitudes 14° and 33°N, and longitudes 86° and 119°W in the southern portion of North America. Almost all of Mexico lies in the North American Plate , with small parts of the Baja California peninsula on the Pacific and Cocos Plates .
The geography of Mexico describes the geographic features of Mexico, a country in the Americas. Mexico is located at about 23° N and 102° W in the southern portion of North America. From its farthest land points, Mexico is a little over 3,200 km (2,000 mi) in length.
Mexico. Mexico is known for its cuisine, art, archaeology, history, pyramids, music, museums, haciendas, 9,600 km of shoreline, superb architecture, weather from snow-capped mountains in the Sierras to rainy jungles in the southeast and desert in the northwest, many golf courses and excellent fishing. Overview. Map. Directions.
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Sep 4, 2019 · Mexico, officially called the United Mexican States, is a country located in North America south of the United States and north of Belize and Guatemala. It has coastline along the Pacific Ocean, Caribbean Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico , and it is considered the 13th largest country in the world based on area. Mexico is also the 11th most populous ...
