Mexico 2 Essay Research Paper Mexico is

Mexico 2 Essay, Research Paper

Mexico is the largest Spanish-speaking country and the second-largest Roman Catholic nation in the world. It extends from the 14th to the 32d parallel north of the equator in southern North America. Brazil and Argentina are the only Latin American countries that exceed it in area. The United States borders Mexico on the north, while Guatemala and Belize are found on the southeast, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea on the east, and the Pacific Ocean on the west and south. The country’s name is taken from the Mexico, one of seven Nahuatl tribes that inhabit the central region of the country.

Ancient Native American civilizations–including those of the Maya, Olmec, Zapotec, Mixtec, Toltec, and Aztec — flourished there for centuries before the Spanish conquest in the 16th century. Under the Spaniards, Mexico became the Viceroyalty of New Spain. It was ruled as a colony for more than 300 years and gained independence on Oct. 4, 1824.

Political strife, anarchy and war marked the next half-century. This period brought war with the United States in 1846 and the loss of what is now Texas, followed in 1848 by the cession of lands included in the present U.S. states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Texas, and California. In the late 1800s, Dictator Porfirio Diaz brought a long period of stability and development by foreign interests. The 1910 Revolution signaled the beginning of a period of dramatic social change that led to the creation of the Constitution of 1917, which remains in force. President Lazaro Cardenas achieved widespread land reform and nationalization of the country’s basic industries in the l930s. Although Mexican industry expanded substantially between 1940 and l980, rapid population growth prevented millions of Mexicans from escaping the chains of poverty. After 1980 a recessionary world economy slowed progress.

Mexico is mostly mountainous. The volcano Orizaba, located near Puebla in a chain of mountains called the Transverse Volcanic Sierra, is Mexico’s highest mountain, with an elevation of 18,855 ft. This sierra extends east west across Mexico to the north of Mexico City, the country’s capital, and includes the spectacular volcanoes Popocatepetl, IxtacihuatlI and Paricutin, the last born only in 1943.

The two main mountain ranges to the north of Mexico City run north and south; they are southward continuations of the Rocky Mountains. These are the Sierra Madre Occidental in the west, with elevations exceeding 10,000 ft and the Sierra Madre Oriental in the east, which rises to more than 13,000 ft. The Mexican Plateau, covering over 40% of the country’s area, sits between them. This tableland increases in elevation as one moves southward; the farther south, the cooler and rainier it becomes. The Sierra Zacatecas divides the Mexican Plateau into the dry, sparely settled Northern Mesa and the lake-dotted, densely populated Central Mesa. Coastal plains border the mountains along the Gulf of Mexico and Pacific coasts. The Gulf of California separates the Baja California peninsula from the mainland.

East-west trend lines dominate mountains along the southern Pacific coast; they are structurally related to landforms in Central America and the West Indies. The down-faulted lowland of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec’s narrowest point interrupts these mountains. They include the rounded, worn, and ancient rocks of the Southern Sierra Madre, which descend steeply to the Pacific coast between Cape Corrientes and the Gulf of Tehuantepec. The isolated Balsas River Basin separates the volcanic zone from the Southern Sierra Madre.

In the east the Yucatan Peninsula is a low limestone platform that projects northward into the Gulf of Mexico. In the southeast, between the Yucatan Peninsula and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the principal landforms are the Tabasco Plain, along the Gulf of Mexico; the Chiapas Highlands, which reach elevations of more than 9,385 ft; the Chiapas Valley; the Sierra Madre de Chiapas, an eastward continuation of the Southern Sierra Madre; and a narrow coastal plain along the Pacific Ocean.

Mexico is divided by a major biogeographic regional boundary: the imaginary line that separates the temperate and tropical floral and faunal zones. This contributes to Mexico’s great biological diversity. Rain-forest vegetation predominates in the states of southeastern Mexico, especially southwestern CAMPECHE, northeastern CHIAPAS, northern TABASCO, southeastern VERACRUZ, and in the southern and eastern regions of the Yucatan Peninsula. Annual rainfall exceeds 2,000 mm (80 in) in these places. Coniferous and oak-tree forests predominate in humid areas at higher elevations, including the Sierra Madre Oriental, the Sierra Madre Occidental, the Sierra Madre del Sur, the Sierra Madre de Chiapas, the Transverse Volcanic Sierra, and the uplands of northern Baja California. Tropical savanna dominates much of the Yucatan Peninsula and some parts of the Pacific and Gulf coastal plains. Thorny desert thickets and dry grasslands can be found in dry areas of the Mexican Plateau, northeastern and northwestern parts of the country, and in Baja California. Mangrove swamps are common in low, muddy areas along the Gulf and Pacific coasts south of the Tropic of Cancer.

Widely distributed fauna include deer, coyote, rabbits, skunks, badgers, pumas, bears, snakes, and many spec