Mexico

Mexico (pronounced i /ˈmɛksɪkoʊ/; Spanish: México [ˈmexiko] ( listen)), officially known as the United Mexican States[12] (Spanish: Estados Unidos Mexicanos (help·info)), is a federalconstitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the eastby the Gulf of Mexico.[13] Covering almost 2 million square kilometres (over 760,000 sq mi),[2] Mexico is the fifth-largest country in the Americas by total area and the 14th largest independentnation in the world. With an estimated population of 111 million,[2] it is the 11th most populous country and the most populous Hispanophone country. Mexico is a federation comprising thirty-one statesand a Federal District, the capital city.

In Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica many cultures matured into advanced civilizations such as the Olmec, the Toltec, the Teotihuacan, the Zapotec, the Maya and theAztec before the first contact with Europeans. In 1521, Spain conquered and colonized the territory from its base in México-Tenochtitlan, which was administered as the Viceroyalty of New Spain. Thisterritory would eventually become Mexico as the colony independence was recognized in 1821. The post-independence period was characterized by economic instability, the Mexican–American War andterritorial cession to the US, a civil war, two empires and a domestic dictatorship. The latter led to the Mexican Revolution in 1910, which culminated with the promulgation of the 1917 Constitution and theemergence of the country's current political system. Elections held in July 2000 marked the first time that an opposition party won the presidency from the Institutional Revolutionary Party.

Mexicois both one of the world's largest economies and a regional power,[14][15] and since 1994 the first Latin American member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and a...