Fort Wayne TinCaps
The Fort Wayne TinCaps are a Class A Minor League Baseball team based in Fort Wayne, who are affiliated with the San Diego Padres, play in the Midwest League. They won the franchise's fourth Midwest League Championship, first in Fort Wayne, in 2009; the Midwest League came to Fort Wayne in 1993. The franchise is the oldest in the Midwest League and dates back to the league's beginning as the Illinois State League, starting in 1947 in Mattoon, Illinois as the Mattoon Indians. In 1958 the team moved to Keokuk, where it spent five seasons as the Keokuk Cardinals; the team was a Minnesota Twins farm team before they affiliated with the Padres in 1999. When the team moved to Fort Wayne in 1993, it adopted the Wizards; the name TinCaps was chosen following the 2008 season, alluding to John Chapman, better known as Johnny Appleseed. The Tin Cap refers to a fictionalized depiction of John Chapman wearing a cooking pot as a hat in the 1948 Walt Disney movie "Johnny Appleseed," though this depiction has been disputed by historians.
Chapman is buried in the city. The team's home park was Memorial Stadium, which opened in 1993; as part of the Harrison Square revitalization project, Parkview Field became the official home of the TinCaps at the start of the 2009 season. To coincide with the new ballpark, the team held a contest to determine a new name for the Wizards once that new ballpark opened, "TinCaps" was the result; the mascot of the TinCaps is Johnny TinCap. For the Wizards, it was Dinger the Dragon and prior to that, the Wizards were represented by Wayne the Wizard; the team won the Midwest League 2009 championship by sweeping the Burlington Bees, 3–0. The first two games were played at Parkview Field and the final, decisive game was played in Burlington, Iowa; the team and its staff were honored at Parkview Field in a special victory rally on September 18, 2009. In addition to winning a franchise record-setting 94 games in their new home, fans shattered the previous attendance record for the season, with 378,529 coming through the turnstiles.
The TinCaps clinched playoff spots in every season of Parkview Field's existence with the exception of 2016. 1985, 1987, 2009 – Midwest League championship 2009 – MiLBY Awards "Overall Team of the Year" On August 24, 2008, The Journal Gazette and the franchise selected the all-time Wizards team members. Dylan Axelrod, Trea Turner, Torii Hunter, Jake Peavy, Joakim Soria, Nate Freiman, David Freese, Max Fried, Will Venable, Nick Hundley, Matt Antonelli, Josh Geer, Josh Barfield, A. J. Pierzynski, Michael Cuddyer, Wade LeBlanc, Corey Koskie, Dirk Hayhurst, LaTroy Hawkins, Matt Lawton, Brandon Gomes, Mat Latos, Allan Dykstra, Brad Brach, Matt Wisler, Corey Kluber, Dan Serafini, Mike Hazen, Miles Mikolas. History of sports in Fort Wayne, Indiana Dinda, J. "Fort Wayne, Indiana, in the Midwest League" http://journalgazette.net/article/20090918/SPORTS0604/309189873/1008/SPORTS Official website MadFriars.com Baseball in Fort Wayne
Oakland Athletics
The Oakland Athletics referred to as the A's, are an American professional baseball team based in Oakland, California. They compete in Major League Baseball as a member club of the American League West division; the team plays its home games at the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum. They have won nine World Series championships, tied for the third-most of all current MLB teams; the 2018 season was the club's 50th while based in Oakland. One of the American League's eight charter franchises, the team was founded in Philadelphia in 1901 as the Philadelphia Athletics, they won three World Series championships from 1910 to 1913 and back-to-back titles in 1929 and 1930. The team's owner and manager for its first 50 years was Connie Mack and Hall of Fame players included Chief Bender, Frank "Home Run" Baker, Jimmie Foxx, Lefty Grove; the team left Philadelphia for Kansas City in 1955 and became the Kansas City Athletics before moving to Oakland in 1968. They won three consecutive World Championships between 1972 and 1974, led by players including Vida Blue, Catfish Hunter, Reggie Jackson, ace reliever Rollie Fingers, colorful owner Charlie O. Finley.
After being sold by Finley to Walter A. Haas Jr. the team won three consecutive pennants and the 1989 World Series behind the "Bash Brothers", Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire, as well as Hall of Famers Dennis Eckersley, Rickey Henderson and manager Tony La Russa. From 1901 to 2018, the Athletics' overall win–loss record is 8,931–9,387; the history of the Athletics Major League Baseball franchise spans the period from 1901 to the present day, having begun in Philadelphia before moving to Kansas City in 1955 and to its current home in Oakland, California, in 1968. The A's made their Bay Area debut on Wednesday, April 17, 1968, with a 4-1 loss to the Baltimore Orioles at the Coliseum, in front of an opening-night crowd of 50,164; the Athletics' name originated in the term "Athletic Club" for local gentlemen's clubs—dates to 1860 when an amateur team, the Athletic of Philadelphia, was formed. The team turned professional through 1875, becoming a charter member of the National League in 1876, but were expelled from the N.
L. after one season. A version of the Athletics played in the American Association from 1882 to 1891. After New York Giants manager John McGraw told reporters that Philadelphia manufacturer Benjamin Shibe, who owned the controlling interest in the new team, had a "white elephant on his hands", team manager Connie Mack defiantly adopted the white elephant as the team mascot, presented McGraw with a stuffed toy elephant at the start of the 1905 World Series. McGraw and Mack had known each other for years, McGraw accepted it graciously. By 1909, the A's were wearing an elephant logo on their sweaters, in 1918 it turned up on the regular uniform jersey for the first time. In 1963, when the A's were located in Kansas City, then-owner Charlie Finley changed the team mascot from an elephant to a mule, the state animal of Missouri; this is rumored to have been done by Finley in order to appeal to fans from the region who were predominantly Democrats at the time. Since 1988, the Athletics' 21st season in Oakland, an illustration of an elephant has adorned the left sleeve of the A's home and road uniforms.
Beginning in the mid 1980s, the on-field costumed incarnation of the A's elephant mascot went by the name Harry Elephante. In 1997, he took Stomper. Through the seasons, the Athletics' uniforms have paid homage to their amateur forebears to some extent; until 1954, when the uniforms had "Athletics" spelled out in script across the front, the team's name never appeared on either home or road uniforms. Furthermore, neither "Philadelphia" nor the letter "P" appeared on the uniform or cap; the typical Philadelphia uniform had only a script "A" on the left front, the cap had the same "A" on it. In the early days of the American League, the standings listed the club as "Athletic" rather than "Philadelphia", in keeping with the old tradition; the city name came to be used for the team, as with the other major league clubs. After buying the team in 1960, owner Charles O. Finley introduced new road uniforms with "Kansas City" printed on them, as well as an interlocking "KC" on the cap. Upon moving to Oakland, the "A" cap emblem was restored, although in 1970 an "apostrophe-s" was added to the cap and uniform emblem to reflect the fact that Finley was in the process of changing the team's name to the "A's".
While in Kansas City, Finley changed the team's colors from their traditional red and blue to what he termed "Kelly Green, Wedding Gown White and Fort Knox Gold". It was here that he began experimenting with dramatic uniforms to match these bright colors, such as gold sleeveless tops with green undershirts and gold pants; the innovative uniforms only increased after the team's move to Oakland, which came at the time of the introduction of polyester pullover uniforms. During their dynasty years in the 1970s, the A's had dozens of uniform combinations with jerseys and pants in all three team colors, in fact did not wear the traditional gray on the road, instead wearing green or gold, which helped to contribute to their nickname of "The Swingin' A's". After the team's sale to the Haas family, the team changed its primary color to a more subdued forest green and began a move back to more traditional uniforms; the team wears home uniforms with "Athletics" spelled out in script writing and road uniforms wit
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball game played between two opposing teams who take turns batting and fielding. The game proceeds when a player on the fielding team, called the pitcher, throws a ball which a player on the batting team tries to hit with a bat; the objectives of the offensive team are to hit the ball into the field of play, to run the bases—having its runners advance counter-clockwise around four bases to score what are called "runs". The objective of the defensive team is to prevent batters from becoming runners, to prevent runners' advance around the bases. A run is scored when a runner advances around the bases in order and touches home plate; the team that scores the most runs by the end of the game is the winner. The first objective of the batting team is to have a player reach first base safely. A player on the batting team who reaches first base without being called "out" can attempt to advance to subsequent bases as a runner, either or during teammates' turns batting; the fielding team tries to prevent runs by getting batters or runners "out", which forces them out of the field of play.
Both the pitcher and fielders have methods of getting the batting team's players out. The opposing teams switch forth between batting and fielding. One turn batting for each team constitutes an inning. A game is composed of nine innings, the team with the greater number of runs at the end of the game wins. If scores are tied at the end of nine innings, extra innings are played. Baseball has no game clock. Baseball evolved from older bat-and-ball games being played in England by the mid-18th century; this game was brought by immigrants to North America. By the late 19th century, baseball was recognized as the national sport of the United States. Baseball is popular in North America and parts of Central and South America, the Caribbean, East Asia in Japan and South Korea. In the United States and Canada, professional Major League Baseball teams are divided into the National League and American League, each with three divisions: East and Central; the MLB champion is determined by playoffs. The top level of play is split in Japan between the Central and Pacific Leagues and in Cuba between the West League and East League.
The World Baseball Classic, organized by the World Baseball Softball Confederation, is the major international competition of the sport and attracts the top national teams from around the world. A baseball game is played between two teams, each composed of nine players, that take turns playing offense and defense. A pair of turns, one at bat and one in the field, by each team constitutes an inning. A game consists of nine innings. One team—customarily the visiting team—bats in the top, or first half, of every inning; the other team -- customarily the home team -- bats in second half, of every inning. The goal of the game is to score more points than the other team; the players on the team at bat attempt to score runs by circling or completing a tour of the four bases set at the corners of the square-shaped baseball diamond. A player bats at home plate and must proceed counterclockwise to first base, second base, third base, back home to score a run; the team in the field attempts to prevent runs from scoring and record outs, which remove opposing players from offensive action until their turn in their team's batting order comes up again.
When three outs are recorded, the teams switch roles for the next half-inning. If the score of the game is tied after nine innings, extra innings are played to resolve the contest. Many amateur games unorganized ones, involve different numbers of players and innings; the game is played on a field whose primary boundaries, the foul lines, extend forward from home plate at 45-degree angles. The 90-degree area within the foul lines is referred to as fair territory; the part of the field enclosed by the bases and several yards beyond them is the infield. In the middle of the infield is a raised pitcher's mound, with a rectangular rubber plate at its center; the outer boundary of the outfield is demarcated by a raised fence, which may be of any material and height. The fair territory between home plate and the outfield boundary is baseball's field of play, though significant events can take place in foul territory, as well. There are three basic tools of baseball: the ball, the bat, the glove or mitt: The baseball is about the size of an adult's fist, around 9 inches in circumference.
It wound in yarn and covered in white cowhide, with red stitching. The bat is a hitting tool, traditionally made of a solid piece of wood. Other materials are now used for nonprofessional games, it is a hard round stick, about 2.5 inches in diameter at the hitting end, tapering to a narrower handle and culminating in a knob. Bats used by adults are around 34 inches long, not longer than 42 inches; the glove or mitt is a fielding tool, made of padded leather with webbing between the fingers. As an aid in catching and holding onto the ball, it takes various shapes to meet the specific needs of differ
Coahuila
Coahuila, formally Coahuila de Zaragoza the Free and Sovereign State of Coahuila de Zaragoza, is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, compose the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. Coahuila borders the Mexican states of Nuevo León to the east and San Luis Potosí to the south, Durango and Chihuahua to the west. To the north, Coahuila accounts for a 512 kilometres stretch of the Mexico–United States border, adjacent to the U. S. state of Texas along the course of the Rio Grande. With an area of 151,563 square kilometres, it is the nation's third-largest state, it comprises 38 municipalities. In 2010, Coahuila's population is 2,748,391 inhabitants; the five largest cities in Coahuila are the state capital city of Saltillo. The name Coahuila derives from native terms for the region, has been known by variations such as Cuagüila and Cuauila; some historians believe that this means “flying serpent”, “place of many trees”, or “place where serpents creep”. The official name of the state is Coahuila de Zaragoza, in honor of General Ignacio Zaragoza.
The Spanish explored the north of Mexico some decades after their victory in Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztecs. Such exploration was delayed because the northern climate was harsher and there was no gold; the first Spanish settlement in the region now called Coahuila was at Minas de la Trinidad in 1577. Saltillo was settled in 1586, to form part of the province of Nueva Vizcaya of the Vice-royalty of New Spain, it became one of the first provinces of Nueva Extremadura to be explored by Europeans. Among the 16th century settlers of Saltillo and other communities in Nueva Vizcaya were Tlaxcalans, who founded an independent community bordering Saltillo, called San Esteban de Nueva Tlaxcala. "Coahuila and Texas" was one of the constituent states of the newly independent United Mexican States under their 1824 Constitution, included Texas and Nuevo León. In the same year Nuevo León was detached, but Texas remained a part of the state until 1836, when it seceded to form the Republic of Texas. Monclova was the capital of the state from 1833 to 1835.
In 1840 Coahuila became a member of the short lived Republic of the Rio Grande. On February 19, 1856, Santiago Vidaurri annexed Coahuila to his state, Nuevo León, but it regained its separate status in 1868. During the Mexican Revolution, Francisco Villa attacked the city of Torreón. On April 4, 2004, the border city of Piedras Negras was flooded. More than 30 people died and more than 4,000 lost their homes. In 2007 Coahuila became the first state in Mexico to offer civil unions to same-sex couples; the Sierra Madre Oriental runs northwest to southeast through the State, the higher elevations are home to the Sierra Madre Oriental pine-oak forests. The northernmost fingers of the Sierra Madre Oriental, the Sierra del Burro and the Sierra del Carmen, reach to the border with the United States at the Rio Grande. East of the range, the land slopes toward the Rio Grande, is drained by several rivers, including the Salado and its tributary, the Sabinas River; the Tamaulipan mezquital, a dry shrubland ecoregion, occupies the eastern portion of the State, extends across the Rio Grande into southern Texas.
The portion of the State west of the Sierra Madre Oriental lies on the Mexican Plateau, is part of the Chihuahuan Desert. The Bolsón de Mapimí is a large endorheic basin which covers much of the western portion of the State and extends into adjacent portions of Chihuahua and Zacatecas; the Nazas River, which flows east from Durango, the Aguanaval River, which flows north from Zacatecas, empty into lakes in the Bolsón. Torreón, the most populous city in the State, lies on the Nazas in the irrigated Laguna Region, which straddles the border of Coahuila and Durango. Coahuila contains two biosphere reserves. Maderas del Carmen lies on the northern border of the State, includes sections of the Chihuahuan desert and sky islands of pine-oak forest in the Sierra del Carmen; the springs and wetlands of Cuatro Ciénegas lie west of Monclova on the west slope of the Sierra Madre. Coahuila is arid or semi-arid, but the rivers of the State support extensive irrigated agriculture cotton; the Parras district in the southern part of the State produces brandies.
The pine-oak forests of the Sierra Madre produce timber. The last population census run across Mexico in the year 2015, reports Coahuila de Zaragoza as having 2,954,915 inhabitants, considering its size, means that the state has a low density, in fact as low as only 15 persons per square kilometer. Coahuila's population is made up of Criollos along with Mestizos. Fewer than 7,500 natives reside in Coahuila, or 0.3% of the total population. The rest of the population is composed of Americans and Japanese communities; the rest of the demographic particulars in the state are similar to national averages, such as a high life expectancy and a Catholic majority. Basic public education in Coahuila is managed by the state's Secretary of Education, but federal-sustained schools are very common. There are a lot of private schools in the main cities of the state; some of the most recognized universities in Coahuila include: A private university part of the Jesuit Uni
2014 Major League Baseball season
The 2014 Major League Baseball season began on March 22 at the Sydney Cricket Ground in Sydney, between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Arizona Diamondbacks. The North American part of the season started on March 30 and ended on September 28; the Major League Baseball All-Star Game's 85th edition was held on July 15 at Target Field in Minneapolis, home of the Minnesota Twins. The American League beat the National League 5–3. With the win, the AL champion earned home-field advantage during the World Series; this year the Houston Astros hosted the Civil Rights Game on May 30 at Minute Maid Park. They played host to the Baltimore Orioles; this was the final season of Bud Selig as the Commissioner of Baseball. Selig served as the Executive Council Chairman from 1992 to 1998, acting as the commissioner, was appointed as the official commissioner in 1998. On August 14, 2014, the franchise owners selected Rob Manfred to become the new Commissioner, starting in 2015. No significant changes were made to the 2014 schedule.
As was the case in 2013, each team played 19 games against each division opponent for a total of 76 games, six or seven games against each team from the other two divisions in its league for a total of 66 games. All teams played 20 interleague games, with the majority of match-ups following the divisional rotation in place since 2004. For 2014, the matchups were AL East vs. NL Central, AL Central vs. NL West, AL West vs. NL East. Teams played four games against a designated "rival" in two back-to-back two-game series, one home and one away. Unlike in 2013, when all of these series were played during the same week, these rivalry series were spread from early May through mid-August; the table below shows the interleague rivals for the 2014 season. On August 15, 2013, Major League Baseball announced that it would expand its video review process for the 2014 season, MLB clubs unanimously approved the new rules on January 16, 2014. Managers were now able to challenge certain plays no more than twice per game, including force plays, fair or foul balls, batters hit by a pitch, among others.
If a manager exhausted his ability to challenge plays during the game and after the beginning of the seventh inning, the umpire crew chief could choose to invoke instant replay on any reviewable call. Calls that were challenged were reviewed by an umpiring crew at MLB headquarters in New York City, which made the final ruling. On December 11, 2013, the Playing Rules Committee voted overwhelmingly to outlaw home-plate collisions between runners and catchers. On February 24, 2014, the new rule was put into effect. At the end of the 2013 season, the following teams made replacements to their managers. Evan Longoria: His home run in the seventh inning against the Toronto Blue Jays on April 3 gives him 163 for his Rays' career; this ties the team record held by Carlos Peña. Longoria set the franchise record with his 164th home run on April 19 against the New York Yankees. Miguel Cabrera: Recorded his 2,000th career hit with a home run in the eighth inning against the Baltimore Orioles on April 4, he became the 277th player to reach this mark.
Albert Pujols: Recorded his 1,500th career RBI with a home run in the first inning against the Chicago White Sox on April 8. He became the 52nd player to reach this mark. Recorded his 500th career home run in the fifth inning against the Washington Nationals on April 22, he became the 26th player to reach this mark. Recorded his 550th career double in the first inning against the Los Angeles Dodgers on August 4, he became the 26th player to reach this mark. Recorded his 1,500th career run scored with a home run in the third inning on September 6 against the Minnesota Twins, he became the 71st player to reach this mark. Recorded his 2,500th career hit with a double in the ninth inning on September 6 against the Minnesota Twins, he became the 98th player to reach this mark. Raúl Ibañez /: Recorded his 2,000th career hit with a home run in the ninth inning against the New York Mets on April 12, he became the 278th player to reach this mark. Elvis Andrus: Set team record for stolen bases in career on April 18.
Setting the record with his 173 stolen base, breaking the record, set by Ian Kinsler. José Abreu: Set the rookie record for home runs in April by hitting his ninth on April 25 against the Tampa Bay Rays, he broke the record of eight set by Carlos Delgado and Kent Hrbek. Abreu finished April with ten home runs. Set the rookie record for RBI in April by raising his total to 31 on April 27 against the Tampa Bay Rays, he broke the record of 27 set by Albert Pujols. Abreu finished April with 32 runs batted in. Tied the franchise rookie record for home runs with his 35th homer in the ninth inning on September 14 against the Minnesota Twins, he tied the record, set in 1983 by Ron Kittle. He set a new record with his 36th home run on September 27 against the Kansas City Royals. Adrián Beltré: Recorded his 500th career double in the second inning against the Seattle Mariners on April 27, he became the 59th player to reach this mark. Recorded his 2,500th career hit with a single in the second inning on June 24 against the Detroit Tigers.
He became the 97th player to reach this mark. Nolan Arenado: With a double in the first inning on May 7 against the Texas Rangers, Arenado extended his hit streak to 27 games which tied the team record set by Michael Cuddyer in 2013. Arenado set the team record with a single in the third inning the next night against the Rangers. Arenado's streak came to an end the next night as the Cincinnati Reds held him hitless. Alfonso Soriano: With his single in the second inning on May 12 against the New York Mets, Soriano became the seventh player in Major League hi
Save (baseball)
In baseball, a save is credited to a pitcher who finishes a game for the winning team under certain prescribed circumstances, described below. The number of saves, or percentage of save opportunities converted, is an oft-cited statistic of relief pitchers those in the closer role, it became an official Major League Baseball statistic in 1969. Mariano Rivera is MLB's all-time leader in regular season saves with 652; the term save was being used as far back as 1952. Executives Jim Toomey of the St. Louis Cardinals, Allan Roth of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Irv Kaze of the Pittsburgh Pirates awarded saves to pitchers who finished winning games but were not credited with the win, regardless of the margin of victory; the statistic went unnoticed. A formula with more criteria for saves was invented in 1960 by baseball writer Jerome Holtzman, he felt that the existing statistics at the time, earned run average and win–loss record, did not sufficiently measure a reliever's effectiveness. ERA does not account for inherited runners a reliever allows to score, W-L record does not account for relievers protecting leads.
Elroy Face of the Pittsburgh Pirates was 18–1 in 1959. Holtzman felt that Face was more effective the previous year when he was 5–2; when Holtzman presented the idea to J. G. Taylor Spink, publisher of The Sporting News, " gave a $100 bonus. Maybe it was $200." Holtzman recorded the unofficial save statistic in The Sporting News weekly for nine years before it became official in 1969. In conjunction with publishing the statistic, The Sporting News in 1960 introduced the Fireman of the Year Award, awarded based on a combination of saves and wins; the save became an official MLB statistic in 1969. It was MLB's first new major statistic since the run batted in was added in 1920. Bill Singer is credited with recording the first official save when he pitched three shutout innings in relief of Don Drysdale in the Los Angeles Dodgers' 3–2 Opening Day victory over the Cincinnati Reds at Crosley Field on April 7 of that year. In baseball statistics, the term save is used to indicate the successful maintenance of a lead by a relief pitcher the closer, until the end of the game.
A save is a statistic credited to a relief pitcher, as set forth in Rule 9.19 of the Official Rules of Major League Baseball. That rule states the official scorer shall credit a pitcher with a save when such pitcher meets all four of the following conditions: He is the finishing pitcher in a game won by his team. If a relief pitcher satisfies all of the criteria for a save, except he does not finish the game, he will be credited with a hold. A blown save is charged to a pitcher who enters a game in a situation which permits him to earn a save, but who instead allows the tying run to score. Note that if the tying run was scored by a runner, on base when the new pitcher entered the game, that new pitcher will be charged with a blown save though the run will not be charged to the new pitcher, but rather to the pitcher who allowed that runner to reach base. If the reliever allows the tying or leading run, but the reliever's team wins the game, the reliever wins the game. Due to this definition, a pitcher cannot blow multiple saves in a game unless he has multiple save opportunities, a situation only possible when a pitcher temporarily switches defensive positions.
The blown save was introduced by the Rolaids Relief Man Award in 1988. A pitcher who enters the game in a save situation and does not finish the game—but his team still leading—is not charged with a save opportunity. Save percentage is the ratio of saves to save opportunities. In 1974, tougher criteria were adopted for saves where the tying run had to be on base or at the plate when the reliever entered to qualify for a save; this addressed saves such as Ron Taylor's in a 20–6 New York Mets win over the Atlanta Braves. The rule was relaxed in 1975 to credit a save when a reliever pitches at least one inning with no more than a three-run lead, or comes in with runners on base but the tying run on deck. In 2000, Rolaids started recording a tough save when a pitcher enters a save situation with the potential tying run on base, but still earns the save; as Francisco Rodríguez pursued the single-season saves record in 2008, Baseball Prospectus member Joe Sheehan, Sports Illustrated writer Tom Verducci, The New York Sun writer Tim Marchman wrote that Rodríguez's save total was enhanced by the number of opportunities his team presented, allowing him to amass one particular statistic.
They thought. Sheehan offered that saves did not account for a pitcher's proficiency at preventing runs nor did it reflect leads that were not preserved. Bradford Doolittle of The Kansas City Star wrote, " is the only example in sports of a statistic creating a job." He decried the best relievers pitching fewer innings starting in the 1980s with their workload being reduced from two- to one-inning outings while less efficient pitchers were pitching those innin
Mexico
Mexico the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States. Covering 2,000,000 square kilometres, the nation is the fifth largest country in the Americas by total area and the 13th largest independent state in the world. With an estimated population of over 120 million people, the country is the eleventh most populous state and the most populous Spanish-speaking state in the world, while being the second most populous nation in Latin America after Brazil. Mexico is a federation comprising 31 states and Mexico City, a special federal entity, the capital city and its most populous city. Other metropolises in the state include Guadalajara, Puebla, Tijuana and León. Pre-Columbian Mexico dates to about 8000 BC and is identified as one of five cradles of civilization and was home to many advanced Mesoamerican civilizations such as the Olmec, Teotihuacan, Zapotec and Aztec before first contact with Europeans. In 1521, the Spanish Empire conquered and colonized the territory from its politically powerful base in Mexico-Tenochtitlan, administered as the viceroyalty of New Spain.
Three centuries the territory became a nation state following its recognition in 1821 after the Mexican War of Independence. The post-independence period was tumultuous, characterized by economic inequality and many contrasting political changes; the Mexican–American War led to a territorial cession of the extant northern territories to the United States. The Pastry War, the Franco-Mexican War, a civil war, two empires, the Porfiriato occurred in the 19th century; the Porfiriato was ended by the start of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, which culminated with the promulgation of the 1917 Constitution and the emergence of the country's current political system as a federal, democratic republic. Mexico has the 11th largest by purchasing power parity; the Mexican economy is linked to those of its 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement partners the United States. In 1994, Mexico became the first Latin American member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, it is classified as an upper-middle income country by the World Bank and a newly industrialized country by several analysts.
The country is considered both a regional power and a middle power, is identified as an emerging global power. Due to its rich culture and history, Mexico ranks first in the Americas and seventh in the world for number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Mexico is an ecologically megadiverse country, ranking fourth in the world for its biodiversity. Mexico receives a huge number of tourists every year: in 2018, it was the sixth most-visited country in the world, with 39 million international arrivals. Mexico is a member of the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the G8+5, the G20, the Uniting for Consensus group of the UN, the Pacific Alliance trade bloc. Mēxihco is the Nahuatl term for the heartland of the Aztec Empire, namely the Valley of Mexico and surrounding territories, with its people being known as the Mexica, it is believed to be a toponym for the valley which became the primary ethnonym for the Aztec Triple Alliance as a result, although it could have been the other way around.
In the colonial era, back when Mexico was called New Spain this territory became the Intendency of Mexico and after New Spain achieved independence from the Spanish Empire it came to be known as the State of Mexico with the new country being named after its capital: the City of Mexico, which itself was founded in 1524 on top of the ancient Mexica capital of Mexico-Tenochtitlan. Traditionally, the name Tenochtitlan was thought to come from Nahuatl tetl and nōchtli and is thought to mean "Among the prickly pears rocks". However, one attestation in the late 16th-century manuscript known as "the Bancroft dialogues" suggests the second vowel was short, so that the true etymology remains uncertain; the suffix -co is the Nahuatl locative, making the word a place name. Beyond that, the etymology is uncertain, it has been suggested that it is derived from Mextli or Mēxihtli, a secret name for the god of war and patron of the Mexica, Huitzilopochtli, in which case Mēxihco means "place where Huitzilopochtli lives".
Another hypothesis suggests that Mēxihco derives from a portmanteau of the Nahuatl words for "moon" and navel. This meaning might refer to Tenochtitlan's position in the middle of Lake Texcoco; the system of interconnected lakes, of which Texcoco formed the center, had the form of a rabbit, which the Mesoamericans pareidolically associated with the moon rabbit. Still another hypothesis suggests that the word is derived from Mēctli, the name of the goddess of maguey; the name of the city-state was transliterated to Spanish as México with the phonetic value of the letter x in Medieval Spanish, which represented the voiceless postalveolar fricative. This sound, as well as the voiced postalveolar fricative, represented by a j, evolved into a voiceless velar fricative during the 16th century; this led to the use of the variant Méjico in many publications in Spanish, most notably in Spain, whereas in Mexico and most other Spanish–speaking countries, México was the preferred spelling. In recent years, the Real Academia Española, which regulates the Spanish l
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