{ "Introduction": { "Background": { "text": "
The site of several advanced Amerindian civilizations - including the Olmec, Toltec, Teotihuacan, Zapotec, Maya, and Aztec - Mexico was conquered and colonized by Spain in the early 16th century. Administered as the Viceroyalty of New Spain for three centuries, it achieved independence early in the 19th century. Elections held in 2000 marked the first time since the 1910 Mexican Revolution that an opposition candidate - Vicente FOX of the National Action Party (PAN) - defeated the party in government, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). He was succeeded in 2006 by another PAN candidate Felipe CALDERON, but Enrique PEÑA NIETO regained the presidency for the PRI in 2012. Left-leaning anti-establishment politician and former mayor of Mexico City (2000-05) Andrés Manuel LÓPEZ OBRADOR, from the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA), became president in December 2018.
Mexico is currently the second-largest (after Canada) goods trading partner of the US with nearly $780 billion in two-way goods trade in 2022. Mexico's GDP contracted by 8.2% in 2020 due to pandemic-induced closures, its lowest level since the Great Depression. Mexico’s economy is rebounding; it grew by 4.8% in 2021, driven largely by increased remittances, despite supply chain and pandemic-related challenges, and grew by 3% in 2022.
The US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA, or T-MEC by its Spanish acronym) entered into force on 1 July 2020 and replaced its predecessor, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Mexico amended its constitution on 1 May 2019 to facilitate the implementation of the labor components of USMCA.
Ongoing economic and social concerns include low real wages, high underemployment, inequitable income distribution, and few advancement opportunities, particularly for the largely indigenous population in the impoverished southern states. Since 2007, Mexico's powerful transnational criminal organizations have engaged in a struggle to control criminal markets, resulting in tens of thousands of drug-related homicides and forced disappearances.
" } }, "Geography": { "Location": { "text": "North America, bordering the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, between Belize and the United States and bordering the North Pacific Ocean, between Guatemala and the United States" }, "Geographic coordinates": { "text": "23 00 N, 102 00 W" }, "Map references": { "text": "North America" }, "Area": { "total": { "text": "1,964,375 sq km" }, "land": { "text": "1,943,945 sq km" }, "water": { "text": "20,430 sq km" } }, "Area - comparative": { "text": "slightly less than three times the size of Texas" }, "Land boundaries": { "total": { "text": "4,389 km" }, "border countries": { "text": "Belize 276 km; Guatemala 958 km; US 3,155 km" } }, "Coastline": { "text": "9,330 km" }, "Maritime claims": { "territorial sea": { "text": "12 nm" }, "contiguous zone": { "text": "24 nm" }, "exclusive economic zone": { "text": "200 nm" }, "continental shelf": { "text": "200 nm or to the edge of the continental margin" } }, "Climate": { "text": "varies from tropical to desert" }, "Terrain": { "text": "high, rugged mountains; low coastal plains; high plateaus; desert" }, "Elevation": { "highest point": { "text": "Volcan Pico de Orizaba 5,636 m" }, "lowest point": { "text": "Laguna Salada -10 m" }, "mean elevation": { "text": "1,111 m" } }, "Natural resources": { "text": "petroleum, silver, antimony, copper, gold, lead, zinc, natural gas, timber" }, "Land use": { "agricultural land": { "text": "54.9% (2018 est.)" }, "agricultural land: arable land": { "text": "arable land: 11.8% (2018 est.)" }, "agricultural land: permanent crops": { "text": "permanent crops: 1.4% (2018 est.)" }, "agricultural land: permanent pasture": { "text": "permanent pasture: 41.7% (2018 est.)" }, "forest": { "text": "33.3% (2018 est.)" }, "other": { "text": "11.8% (2018 est.)" } }, "Irrigated land": { "text": "60,620 sq km (2020)" }, "Major lakes (area sq km)": { "fresh water lake(s)": { "text": "Laguna de Chapala - 1,140 sq km" }, "salt water lake(s)": { "text": "Laguna de Terminos - 1,550 sq km" } }, "Major rivers (by length in km)": { "text": "Rio Grande river mouth (shared with US [s]) - 3,057 km; Colorado river mouth (shared with US [s]) - 2,333 kmtsunamis along the Pacific coast, volcanoes and destructive earthquakes in the center and south, and hurricanes on the Pacific, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean coasts
volcanism: volcanic activity in the central-southern part of the country; the volcanoes in Baja California are mostly dormant; Colima (3,850 m), which erupted in 2010, is Mexico's most active volcano and is responsible for causing periodic evacuations of nearby villagers; it has been deemed a Decade Volcano by the International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Interior, worthy of study due to its explosive history and close proximity to human populations; Popocatepetl (5,426 m) poses a threat to Mexico City; other historically active volcanoes include Barcena, Ceboruco, El Chichon, Michoacan-Guanajuato, Pico de Orizaba, San Martin, Socorro, and Tacana; see note 2 under \"Geography - note\"
" }, "Geography - note": { "text": "note 1: strategic location on southern border of the US; Mexico is one of the countries along the Ring of Fire, a belt of active volcanoes and earthquake epicenters bordering the Pacific Ocean; up to 90% of the world's earthquakes and some 75% of the world's volcanoes occur within the Ring of Fire
note 2: some of the world's most important food crops were first domesticated in Mexico; the \"Three Sisters\" companion plants - winter squash, maize (corn), and climbing beans - served as the main agricultural crops for various North American Indian groups; all three apparently originated in Mexico but then were widely disseminated through much of North America; avocado, amaranth, and chili peppers also emanate from Mexico, as does vanilla, the world's most popular aroma and flavor spice; although cherry tomatoes originated in Ecuador, their domestication in Mexico transformed them into the larger modern tomato
note 3: the Sac Actun cave system at 348 km (216 mi) is the longest underwater cave in the world and the second longest cave worldwide, after Mammoth Cave in the United States (see \"Geography - note\" under United States)
note 4: the prominent Yucatán Peninsula that divides the Gulf of Mexico from the Caribbean Sea is shared by Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize; just on the northern coast of Yucatan, near the town of Chicxulub (pronounce cheek-sha-loob), lie the remnants of a massive crater (some 150 km in diameter and extending well out into the Gulf of Mexico); formed by an asteroid or comet when it struck the earth 66 million years ago, the impact is now widely accepted as initiating a worldwide climate disruption that caused a mass extinction of 75% of all the earth's plant and animal species - including the non-avian dinosaurs
bicameral National Congress or Congreso de la Unión consists of:
Senate or Cámara de Senadores (128 seats; 96 members directly elected in multi-seat constituencies by simple majority vote and 32 directly elected in a single, nationwide constituency by proportional representation vote; members serve 6-year terms)
Chamber of Deputies or Cámara de Diputados (500 seats; 300 members directly elected in single-seat constituencies by simple majority vote and 200 directly elected in a single, nationwide constituency by proportional representation vote; members serve 3-year terms)
Senate - percent of vote by party - percent of vote by party - NA; seats by party - MORENA 58, PAN 22, PRI 14, PRD 9, MC 7, PT 7, PES 5, PVEM 5, PNA/PANAL 1; composition (as of July 2018) - men 65, women 63, percent of women 49.2%
Chamber of Deputies - percent of vote by party - NA; seats by party - MORENA 197, PAN 111, PRI 69, PVEM 44, PT 38, MC 25, PRD 16; composition - men 250, women 250, percent of women 50%; note - overall percent of women in National Congress 49.8%
Citizen's Movement (Movimiento Ciudadano) or MC [Clemente CASTAÑEDA Hoeflich]
Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) or PRI [Claudia RUIZ Massieu]
Labor Party (Partido del Trabajo) or PT [Alberto ANAYA Gutiérrez]
Mexican Green Ecological Party (Partido Verde Ecologista de México) or PVEM [Karen CASTREJÓN Trujillo]
Movement for National Regeneration (Movimiento Regeneración Nacional) or MORENA [Mario DELGADO Carillo]
National Action Party (Partido Acción Nacional) or PAN [Antonio CORTÉS Mendoza]
Party of the Democratic Revolution (Partido de la Revolución Democrática) or PRD [Jesús ZAMBRANO Grijalva]
This Is For Mexico (Va Por México) (alliance that includes PAN, PRI, and PRD)
Together We Make History (Juntos Hacemos Historia) (alliance that included MORENA, PT, PVEM) (dissolved 23 December 2020)
Mexico-Belize: Mexico and Belize are working to solve minor border demarcation discrepancies arising from inaccuracies in the 1898 border treaty
Mexico-Guatemala: Mexico must deal with thousands of impoverished Guatemalans and other Central Americans who cross the porous border looking for work in Mexico and the US
Mexico-US: the US has intensified security measures to monitor and control legal and illegal persons, transport, and commodities across its border with Mexico
" }, "Refugees and internally displaced persons": { "refugees (country of origin)": { "text": "35,755 (Honduras), 13,531 (El Salvador) (mid-year 2022); 82,976 (Venezuela) (economic and political crisis; includes Venezuelans who have claimed asylum, are recognized as refugees, or have received alternative legal stay) (2021)" }, "IDPs": { "text": "379,000 (government's quashing of Zapatista uprising in 1994 in eastern Chiapas Region; drug cartel violence and government's military response since 2007; violence between and within indigenous groups) (2021)" }, "stateless persons": { "text": "13 (2022)" } }, "Illicit drugs": { "text": "
significant source and transit country for fentanyl, fentanyl-laced counterfeit pills, other synthetic opioids, cocaine from South America, heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine destined for the United States; a destination for synthetic drug precursor chemicals from China, India, and other countries
" } } }