Mexico

United Mexican States
*Estados Unidos Mexicanos*
United Mexican States Estados Unidos Mexicanos
	Flag Coat of arms
	Motto: none
	Anthem: "Mexicanos, al grito de guerra"
Capital and largest city	Mexico City
Official languages	Spanish
Government	Federal Republic
Independence
• Water (%)	2.5%
Population
• 2005 estimate	103,088,021 (11th)
• 2000 census	97,483,412
GDP (PPP)	2006 estimate
• Total	$1.122 trillion (13th)
• Per capita	$10,474 (62nd)
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 or Mexico (Spanish: Estados Unidos Mexicanos or México) is a country located in North America, bordered by the United States to the north, and Belize and Guatemala to the southeast. It is the northernmost and westernmost country in Latin America, and also the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world.

The country is often referred to by Mexicans as the Mexican Republic (República Mexicana) although this is not the officially recognized title. The term State of Mexico (Estado de Mexico) does not refer to the country, but only to one state within Mexico, located near the centre of the country adjacent to the Federal District.

History

Main article: History of Mexico

Prehistoric times

Although there are tantalizing fragments of evidence suggesting human habitation of Mexico more than 20,000 years ago, the first solid evidence comes from two kill sites in the northern Basin of Mexico.

Hunter-Gatherer people are thought to have discovered and habitated its territory more than 28,000 years ago. Based on the evidence these Hunter-Gatherer peoples lived off of mammoths and other animals.

Ancient Mexicans began to selectively breed corn plants around 8,000 B.C. Evidence shows the explosion of pottery works by 2300 B.C. and the beginning of intensive farming between 1800 and 1500 B.C. mmm

Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilizations

Between 1800 and 300 BC, complex cultures began to form. Some matured into advanced Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilizations such as the: Olmec, Teotihuacan, Maya, Zapotec, Mixtec, Huaxtec, Purepecha, Toltec and Mexica (a.k.a. "Aztecs"), which flourished for nearly 4,000 years before first contact with Europeans.

These indigenous civilizations are credited with many inventions in: building pyramid-temples, mathematics, astronomy, medicine, writing, highly-accurate calendars, fine arts, intensive agriculture, engineering, an abacus calculation, a complex theology, and the wheel. Without any draft animals the wheel was used only as a toy. The only metals they apparently knew how to use were native copper and gold.

Spanish conquest

Main article: Spanish Conquest of Mexico

In 1519, the native civilizations of Mexico were invaded by Spain with about 600 soldiers and old world diseases, and two years later in 1521, the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) was conquered. It is said that the dead from small pox filled the streets and canals. Hundreds of thousands of Aztecs died of disease. Francisco Hernández de Córdoba explored the shores of South Mexico in 1517, followed by Juan de Grijalva in 1518. The most important of the early Conquistadores was Hernán Cortés, who entered the country in 1519 from a native coastal town which he renamed "Puerto de la Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz" (today's Veracruz).

Contrary to popular opinion, Spain did not conquer all of Mexico when Cortes conquered Tenochtitlan in 1521. It would take another two centuries after the Siege of Tenochtitlan before the Conquest of Mexico would be complete, as sporadic and ineffective rebellions, attacks, and wars continued against the Spanish by other native peoples. Disease ran rampant throughout Mexico dropping the population from about eight million to two million by 1600.

The colonial period

Main article: Colonial Mexico

The Spanish defeat of the Mexica in 1521 marked the beginning of the 300 year-long colonial period of Mexico as New Spain. After the fall of Tenochtitlan Mexico City, it would take decades of sporadic warfare to pacify the rest of Mesoamerica. Particularly fierce were the "Chichimeca wars" in the north of Mexico (1576-1606).

During the colonial period, which lasted from 1521 to 1810, Mexico was known as "Nueva España" or "New Spain", whose territories included today's Mexico, the Spanish Caribbean islands, Central America as far south as Costa Rica, an area comprising today's southwestern United States, and the Philippine Islands.

Mexican war of independence

After Napoleon I invaded Spain and put his brother on the Spanish throne, Mexican Conservatives and rich land-owners who supported Spain's Bourbon royal family objected to the comparatively more liberal Napoleonic policies. Thus an unlikely alliance was formed in Mexico: liberales, or Liberals, who favored a democratic Mexico, and conservadores, or Conservatives, who favored Mexico ruled by a Bourbon monarch who would restore the old status quo. These two elements agreed only that Mexico must achieve independence and determine her own destiny.

Taking advantage of the fact that Spain was severely handicapped under the occupation of Napoleon's army, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a Catholic priest of Spanish descent and progressive ideas, declared Mexico's independence from Spain in the small town of Dolores on September 16, 1810. This act started the long war that eventually led to the official recognition of independence from Spain in 1821. As with many early leaders in the movement for Mexican independence, Hidalgo was captured by opposing forces and executed. The newly independent Mexico, after no European monarch accepted the throne of Mexico, ruled by Agustín de Iturbide, who upon his coronation as Emperor of Mexico became known as Agustin I until his overthrow by republican forces led by Guadalupe Victoria and Antonio López de Santa Anna.

War with the United States

Main article: Mexican-American War

Many presidentes, emporers, dictators, etc. came and went, which brought a long period of instability that lasted most of the 19th century. A dominant figure of the second quarter of that century was the dictator Antonio López de Santa Anna who was president seven different times, many of them unsuccessful.

During this period, many of the mostly unsettled territories in the north were lost to the United States. Santa Anna was Mexico's leader during the conflict with Texas, which declared itself independent from Mexico in 1836 and by beating Santa Anna and the Mexican army made it stick. Again, off and on, Santa Anna as president tried to rule during the disastrous Mexican-American War (1846-48). The US government sent troops to Texas in order to secure the territory ignoring Mexican demands for US withdrawal. Mexico, despite having ignored Texas for ten years, saw this as an US intervention in internal affairs by supporting a "rebel" province.

The struggle for liberal reforms

In 1855 Ignacio Comonfort, leader of the self-described Moderates, was elected president. The Moderados tried to find a middle ground between the nation's Liberals and Conservatives.

The 1857 Constitution

During Comonfort's presidency a new Constitution was drafted. The Constitution of 1857 retained most of the Roman Catholic Church's Colonial era privileges and revenues, but unlike the earlier constitution did not mandate that the Catholic Church be the nation's exclusive religion. Such reforms were unacceptable to the leadership of the clergy and the Conservatives, Comonfort and members of his administration were excommunicated and a revolt was declared.

The War of Reform

This led to the War of Reform, from December 1857 to January 1861. This civil war became increasingly bloody and polarized the nation's politics. Many of the Moderados came over to the side of the Liberales, convinced that the great political power of the Church needed to be curbed. For some time the Liberals and Conservatives had their own governments, the Conservatives in Mexico City and the Liberals headquartered in Veracruz. The war ended with Liberal victory, and Liberal president Benito Juárez moved his administration to Mexico City.

French intervention and an emperor

File:Juarez.JPG

Benito Juárez, important figure of Mexican history

In the 1860s, the country again suffered a military occupation, this time by France, seeking to establish the Habsburg Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian of Austria as Emperor of Mexico, with support from the Roman Catholic clergy and conservative elements of the upper class as well as some indigenous communities. The Second Mexican Empire was then overthrown by President Benito Juárez, with diplomatic and logistical support from the United States and the military expertise of General Porfirio Díaz. General Ignacio Zaragoza defeated the largely unsupported French Army in Mexico at the city of Puebla on May 5, 1862, celebrated as Cinco de Mayo ever since. However, after his death, the city was lost in early 1863, following a renewed French attack which penetrated as far as Mexico City, forcing Juárez to organize a new itinerant government.

Order, progress and the Díaz dictatorship

After the victory, there was resentment by Conservatives against President Juárez (who they thought concentrated too much power and wanted to be re-elected) so one of the army's generals, named Porfirio Díaz, rebelled against the government with the proclamation of the Plan de Tuxtepec in 1876.

Díaz became the new president. During a period of more than thirty years (1876–1911) while he was the strong man in Mexico, the country's infrastructure improved greatly thanks to investments from other countries. This period of relative prosperity and peace is known as the Porfiriato. But the people were not happy with the form of government during the Porfiriato: it was attracting investors because the pay for workers was very low, which produced a very steep social division: only a small group of investors (domestic and foreign) were getting rich, but the vast majority of the people remained in abject poverty. Democracy was completely suppressed, and dissent was dealt with in repressive, often brutal ways (see, for example, Nogales, Veracruz).

The Mexican economic miracle

During the next four decades, Mexico experienced impressive economic growth (from a very low base), and historians call this period "El Milagro Mexicano", the Mexican Miracle. This was in spite of falling foreign confidence in investment during the worldwide great depression. The assumption of mineral rights and subsequent nationalisation of the oil industry into PEMEX during the presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas del Río was a popular move.

NAFTA

On January 1 1994, Mexico became a full member of the North American Free Trade Agreement, joining the United States of America and Canada in a large and prosperous economic bloc. On March 23 2005, the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America was signed by the elected leaders of those countries.

The end of PRI's hegemony

Even though it was frequently accused of corruption, influence peddling and blatant election fraud, the PRI managed to retain a firm grip on political power in Mexico until the end of the 20th century. Almost all public offices were held by members of the PRI.

It was not until the 1980s that the PRI lost the first state governorship, an event that marked the beginning of the party's loss of hegemony. Through the electoral reforms started by president Carlos Salinas de Gortari and consolidated by president Ernesto Zedillo, by the mid 1990s the PRI had lost its majority in Congress. In 2000, after seventy years, the PRI lost a presidential elections to a candidate of the National Action Party (PAN), Vicente Fox. He was the 69th president of Mexico. The continued non-PAN majority in the Congress of Mexico prevented him from implementing most of his proposed reforms.

Government and politics

Main articles: Government of Mexico, Politics of Mexico

Mexico’s political model has much in common with that of the United States. 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. The president also legislates by executive decree in certain economic and financial fields, using powers delegated from Congress. The president is elected by universal adult suffrage for a six-year term and may not hold office a second time. There is no vice-president in the republic. Vicente Fox has served as president since December 1, 2000.

The three most important political parties in Mexico are the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the National Action Party (PAN), and the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).

General elections

Political divisions

Main article: States of Mexico

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.

File:Mexico-States.png

States of Mexico (excluding the islands)

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, whose powers are still more curtailed than those of a state governor. Much of the capital city's metropolitan area overflows the limits of the Federal District.

Major cities

The following is a list of the principal Metropolitan Areas of Mexico in order of population:

File:Guadalajara001.jpg

Guadalajara, Jalisco

Mexico City, Distrito Federal (22.0 million)
Guadalajara, Jalisco (4.7 million)
Monterrey, Nuevo León (3.6 million)
Puebla, Puebla (2.6 million)
Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua (1.8 million)
Tijuana, Baja California (1.5 million)
León, Guanajuato (1.2 million)
Toluca, México (1.2 million)
Torreón, Coahuila (1.1 million)
San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosí (0.8 million)
Mérida, Yucatán (0.8 million)
Santiago de Querétaro, Querétaro (0.8 million)
Aguascalientes, Aguascalientes (0.7 million)
Cuernavaca, Morelos (0.7 million)
Chihuahua, Chihuahua (0.7 million)

Geography and climate

File:Copper Canyon1.jpg

Copper Canyon in the state of Chihuahua

Situated in the southwestern part of mainland North America and roughly triangular in shape, Mexico stretches more than 3,000 kilometres (1,875 mi) from northwest to southeast. Its width is varied, from more than 2,000 kilometres (1,250 mi) in the north and less than 220 kilometres (137 mi) at the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in the south.

Mexico is bordered by the United States to the north, and Belize and Guatemala to the southeast. Baja California in the west is a 1,250 kilometre (775 mi) peninsula and forms the Gulf of California. In the east are the Gulf of Mexico and the Bay of Campeche, which is formed by Mexico's other peninsula, the Yucatán. The center of Mexico is a great, high plateau, open to the north, with mountain chains on the east and west and with ocean-front lowlands lying outside of them. (See list of mountains in Mexico). Mexico is about one-fourth the size of the United States.

The terrain and climate vary from rocky deserts in the north to tropical rain forest in the south. Mexico's major rivers include the Río Bravo del Norte (Rio Grande) and the Usumacinta on its northern and southern borders, respectively, together with the Grijalva, Balsas, Pánuco, and Yaqui in the interior. The Tropic of Cancer effectively divides the country into temperate and tropical zones. Land north of the twenty-fourth parallel experiences cooler temperatures during the winter months. South of the point, temperatures are fairly constant year round and vary solely as a function of elevation.

On September 19, 1985, an earthquake measuring approximately 8.0 on the Richter scale struck Michoacán and inflicted severe damage on Mexico City. Estimates of the number of dead range from 6,500 to 30,000 (see 1985 Mexico City earthquake).

Economy

File:Angel of Independence.jpg

The Angel of Independence monument in the heart of Mexico City.

According to the World Bank, Mexico ranks 12th in the world in regard to GDP and has the highest per capita income in its region; 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 [1].

Mexico has a free-market 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 200 in 1999. Recent administrations have expanded competition in seaports, railroads, telecommunications, electricity generation, natural gas distribution, and airports.

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.

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, Benito Juárez, one of the political districts in D.F., would have a similar development than that of Italy, whereas Metlatonoc, Guerrero, would have an HDI similar to that of Malawi [2].

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 and crime continue to be chronic problems. The present administration is cognizant of the need to upgrade infrastructure, modernize the tax system and labor laws, and allow private investment in the energy sector, but has been unable to win the support of the opposition-led Congress.

Demographics

File:Beach at Cancún, México.jpg

Beach in Cancún, Quintana Roo

Main article: Demographics of Mexico
See also: Indigenous peoples of Mexico

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

Mexico is racially and ethnically diverse. According to the CIA World Factbook, about 60% of the population is mestizo (mixed Spanish and Amerindian), and another 30% is Amerindian or predominantly Amerindian. Some 9% is European, mostly of Spanish descent, though there are those of German, Italian, French, Portuguese, British and other European ancestry. The remaining 1% includes Afro-Mexicans, Middle Easterners (primarily Lebanese), and East Asians.

Mexico is also home for many other Latin American emigrants, including most numerously Argentines(Mexico is home to the largest Argentine population outside of Argentina) [3], Cubans, Brazilians, Nicaraguans, other South Americans 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.

According to the Comisión Nacional para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas ("National Indigenous People' Development Council"), the 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).

Mexico is the country where the greatest number of U.S citizens live outside the United States. 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 more immigrants are Baja California (12.1% of total immigrants), 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. 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.

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).

Religion

Main article: Religion in Mexico

Mexico is predominantly Roman Catholic (about 89% of the population). It is the nation with the second largest Catholic population, behind Brazil and before the United States. 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. [4]

Judaism has been practiced in Mexico for centuries, and there are estimated to be more than 45,000 Jews in Mexico today^[1]. Islam is mainly practiced by members of the Arab, Turkish, and other expatriate communities, though there is a very small number of the indigenous population in Chiapas state that practice Islam.

Languages

Main article: Languages of Mexico

Spanish is the official language of Mexico and is 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.

Although Spanish is the official 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 what they like to describe as "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 and the town of San Miguel de Allende. There are also Mennonite colonies in Chihuahua where education is delivered in German.

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 Veracruz, 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 "Barcelonettes" 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 very notorious 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.

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" satellite secondary education, aimed for the little towns and rural communities. In 2005 this system included 30,000 connected schools, 3 million students and 300,000 teachers, who use televised lectures and education science programs, pre-recorded and transmitted through "EduSat", via satellite. 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 most widely known 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 renowned in Latin American education. However, private universities have enjoyed a better reputation for some time now, because students have given a bad name to the public universities through such events as the student strikes at the UNAM in the 90s. (UNAM has various private campuses around Mexico which were not affected by student disturbances on the Mexico City campuses). The most important private universities are Mexico's Autonomous Technological Institute (ITAM), Monterrey's Technological and Higher Education Insitute (ITESM) and the Ibero-American University (Universidad Iberoamericana).

Culture, media, and sports

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, Thalía, and Salma Hayek. Even Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna from Y tu mamá también and current Zegna model act 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.

The favorite sport remains world football (soccer) while baseball is also popular especially in gulf and bordering states. 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.

Origin and history of the name

This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

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 encountered this people and transcribed their language, 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 had not been invented yet) 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 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 /k͡s/ affricate of Latin or Greek, in words derived from those languages. The standard pronunciation, however, in Spanish is /ɣs/. For example, sexenio /sɛɣˈseːnjo/, "six-year", from Latin sexénnium /sɛˈk͡sɛnːɪ̆ʊm/.

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 otherwise archaic 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 the general rule, 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 "Xochimilco", however, it sounds as a /ʃ/.

A cultural side-effect of the fact that Mexicans use México /'mexiko/ and Spaniards sometimes use Méjico is the occasional boiling-over of negative sentiment towards the old colonial oppressor. 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.