Mexico Essays -- Geography Mexico Mexican History Essays

MexicoSouthward from its 1,500 mile long border with the United States liesthe Estados Unidos Mexicanos. A country with slightly more than 750,000 squaremiles in area, Mexico has a immense array of mineral resources, limitedagricultural land, and a rapidly growing nation. These factors are the basisfor many of the countrys present problems as well as opportunities for coming(prenominal)development. The nation is struggling to modernize its economy. With more than80 million people in the mid-1980s, Mexicos overall population density exceeds110 per square mile. More than fractional of its inhabitants live in the countryscentral core, while the arid north and the tropical south are sparsely settled.The stereotype of Mexico is that it is a country with a populationconsisting mainly of subsistence farmers has little validity. Petroleum andtourism dominate the economy, and industrialization is increasing in many moveof the nation. Internal migration from the countryside has caused u rban centersto grow dramatically more than two thirds of all Mexicans now live in cities.Mexico City, with a metropolitan area population of approximately 16 millionpeople, is the largest city in the world. firearm still low by United Statesstandards, the nations gross national product per capita rose significantlyduring the 1970s. Despite impressive social and economic gains, since 1981Mexico has been wracked by arch inflation and an enormous foreign debt broughton in large part by precipitous declines in the value of petroleum products.Geologically, Mexico is located in one of the Earths most dynamic areas.It is a part of the Ring of Fire, a region around the Pacific Oceanhighlighted by active volcanism and frequent seismic activity. at bottom thecontext of plate tectonics, a theory developed to explain the creation of majorlandform features around the world, Mexico is situated on the western, orleading, edge of the huge northmost American Plate. Its interaction with the Paci fic,Cocos, and Caribbean plates has given rise over geologic time to the Earth-building processes that created most of Mexico. Towering peaks, likeCitlaltepetl at some 18,000 feet, are super young in geologic terms and areexamples of the volcanic forces that built much of central Mexico. Thespectacular eruption of the volcano Chinchon in 1981 w... ...ch of central and southerly Mexicoand had established their capital at Tula in the table Central. They also builtthe city of Teotihuacan near present-day Mexico City. At about the same time,the Zapotecs controlled the Oaxaca Valley and parts of the Southern Highlands.The cities they built at Mitla and Monte Alban remain, though they were takenover by the Mixtecs prior to the arrival of the Spanish.When the Spanish arrived in central Mexico, the Aztecs controlled mostof the Mesa Central through a state tribute system that extracted taxes andpolitical servility from conquered tribal groups. The Aztecs migrated into theMesa Central from the north and fulfilled a tribal prophesy by establishing acity where an eagle with a snake in its beak rested on a cactus. This became thenational symbol of Mexico and adorns the countrys masthead and official seal. TheAztecs founded the city of Tenochtitlan in the early 1300s, and it became thecapital of their empire. The Tlaxcalans to the east, the Tarascans on the west,and the Chichimecs in the north were outside the Aztec domain and frequentlywarred with them. The nations name derives from the Aztecs war god, Mexitli.