1.
Mexico
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Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a federal republic in the southern half of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States, to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean, to the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea, and to the east by the Gulf of Mexico. Covering almost two million square kilometers, Mexico is the sixth largest country in the Americas by total area, Mexico is a federation comprising 31 states and a federal district that is also its capital and most populous city. Other metropolises include Guadalajara, Monterrey, Puebla, Toluca, Tijuana, pre-Columbian Mexico was home to many advanced Mesoamerican civilizations, such as the Olmec, Toltec, Teotihuacan, Zapotec, Maya and Aztec before first contact with Europeans. In 1521, the Spanish Empire conquered and colonized the territory from its base in Mexico-Tenochtitlan, Three centuries later, this territory became Mexico following recognition in 1821 after the colonys Mexican War of Independence. The tumultuous post-independence period was characterized by instability and many political changes. The Mexican–American War led to the cession of the extensive northern borderlands, one-third of its territory. The Pastry War, the Franco-Mexican War, a civil war, the dictatorship was overthrown in the Mexican Revolution of 1910, which culminated with the promulgation of the 1917 Constitution and the emergence of the countrys current political system. Mexico has the fifteenth largest nominal GDP and the eleventh largest by purchasing power parity, the Mexican economy is strongly linked to those of its North American Free Trade Agreement partners, especially the United States. Mexico was the first Latin American member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and it is classified as an upper-middle income country by the World Bank and a newly industrialized country by several analysts. By 2050, Mexico could become the fifth or seventh largest economy. The country is considered both a power and middle power, and is often identified as an emerging global power. Due to its culture and history, Mexico ranks first in the Americas. Mexico is a country, ranking fourth in the world by biodiversity. In 2015 it was the 9th most visited country in the world, Mexico is a member of the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the G8+5, the G20, the Uniting for Consensus and the Pacific Alliance. Mēxihco is the Nahuatl term for the heartland of the Aztec Empire, namely, the Valley of Mexico, and its people, the Mexica and this became the future State of Mexico as a division of New Spain prior to independence. It is generally considered to be a toponym for the valley became the primary ethnonym for the Aztec Triple Alliance as a result. After New Spain won independence from Spain, representatives decided to name the new country after its capital and this was founded in 1524 on top of the ancient Mexica capital of Mexico-Tenochtitlan
2.
National Action Party (Mexico)
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The National Action Party, founded in 1939, is one of the three main political parties in Mexico. Since the 1980s has been an important political party winning local, state, in 2000, PAN candidate Vicente Fox was elected for a six-year Presidential term, in 2006, PAN candidate Felipe Calderón succeeded Fox in presidency. During the period 2000-2012, both houses of the legislature had PAN pluralities, but the party did not have a majority in either house of the Congress. In the 2006 legislative elections the party won 207 out of 500 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 52 out of 128 Senators, in the 2012 Legislative Elections, the PAN won 38 seats in the Senate, and 114 seats in the Chamber of Deputies. The National Action Party was founded in 1939 by Manuel Gómez Morín and he saw the need for the creation a permanent political party rather than an ephemeral organization to oppose the expansion of power by the post-revolutionary Mexican state. When Gómez Morín was rector of in 1933-35, the government attempted to impose socialist education, in defending academic freedom, Gómez Morín forged connections with individuals and groups that later came together in the foundation of the PAN in September 1939. Gómez Morín was not himself a militant Catholic, but he was a believer who rejected liberalism and individualism. In 1939, Gómez Morín and a significant number of UNECs leadership came together to found the PAN, the PAN’s “Doctrine of National Action” was strongly influenced by Catholic social doctrine articulated in Rerum novarum and Quadragesimo anno and rejected Marxist models of class warfare. The PAN’s newspaper, La Nación was founded by another former UNEC member, the relationship between the PAN and the Catholic Church was not without tension. The partys founder Gómez Morín was leery of clerical oversight of the party, although its members were mainly urban Catholic professionals, for its part, the Church hierarchy did not want to identify itself with a particular political party, since the Constitution of 1917 forbade it. In the 1950, the PAN, which had seen to be Catholic in its makeup. The PAN initially was a party of “civic example”, an independent loyal opposition that generally did not win elections at any level, however, in the 1980s it began a transformation to a political power, beginning at the local and state levels in the North of Mexico. A split in the PAN occurred in 1977, with the faction and the more secular wing splitting. The conflict came to a head and in 1977. The party ran no candidate in 1976. The PAN had strength in Northern Mexico and its candidates had won elections earlier on, the following year Manuel Torres Serranía, from Quiroga, Michoacán, became the partys first municipal president and Alfonso Hernández Sánchez its first state deputy. In 1962, Rosario Alcalá became the first female candidate for state governor, in 1967 Norma Villarreal de Zambrano became the first female municipal president. Until the 1980s, the PAN was an opposition party that was considered pro-Catholic and pro-business. The PAN came to be viewed as viable opposition party for a range of voters as it became more secular
3.
Metropolitan area
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As social, economic and political institutions have changed, metropolitan areas have become key economic and political regions. The Greater São Paulo is a term for one of the multiple definitions the large metropolitan area located in the São Paulo state in Brazil. A metropolitan area combines an urban agglomeration with zones not necessarily urban in character and these outlying zones are sometimes known as a commuter belt, and may extend well beyond the urban zone, to other political entities. For example, El Monte, California is considered part of the Los Angeles metro area in the United States, in practice, the parameters of metropolitan areas, in both official and unofficial usage, are not consistent. Population figures given for one area can vary by millions. A polycentric metropolitan area is one not connected by continuous development or conurbation, in defining a metropolitan area, it is sufficient that a city or cities form a nucleus that other areas have a high degree of integration with. The Australian Bureau of Statistics defines statistical divisions as areas under the influence of one or more major towns or a major city. However, this definition has become obsolete with the conurbation of several statistical divisions into a larger metropolitan areas. In Brazil, metropolitan areas are called metropolitan regions, each State defines its own legislation for the creation, definition and organization of a metropolitan region. The creation of a region is not intended for any statistical purpose, although the Brazilian Institute of Geography. Their main purpose is to allow for a management of public policies of common interest to all cities involved. They dont have political, electoral or jurisdictional power whatsoever, so living in a metropolitan region do not elect representatives for them. Statistics Canada defines a metropolitan area as an area consisting of one or more adjacent municipalities situated around a major urban core. To form a CMA, the area must have a population of at least 100,000. To be included in the CMA, adjacent municipalities must have a degree of integration with the core. As of the Canada 2011 Census, there were 33 CMAs in Canada, including six with a population over one million—Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton. In Denmark the only area is Greater Copenhagen, consisting of the Capital Region of Denmark along with the neighboring regions Region Zealand. Greater Copenhagen has an population of 1.25 million people
4.
Rio Grande
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The Rio Grande is one of the principal rivers in the southwest United States and northern Mexico. The Rio Grande begins in south-central Colorado in the United States, along the way, it forms part of the Mexico–United States border. According to the International Boundary and Water Commission, its length was 1,896 miles in the late 1980s. Depending on how it is measured, the Rio Grande is the fourth- or fifth-longest river system in North America. The river serves as part of the border between the U. S. state of Texas and the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León. A very short stretch of the river serves as part of the boundary between the U. S. states of Texas and New Mexico. Since the mid–20th century, heavy consumption of farms and cities along with many large diversion dams on the river has left only 20% of its natural discharge to flow to the Gulf. Near the rivers mouth, the heavily irrigated lower Rio Grande Valley is an important agricultural region, the Rio Grande is one of 19 Great Waters recognized by Americas Great Waters Coalition. The Rio Grandes watershed covers 182,200 square miles, many endorheic basins are situated within, or adjacent to, the Rio Grandes basin, and these are sometimes included in the river basins total area, increasing its size to about 336,000 square miles. The Rio Grande rises in the part of the Rio Grande National Forest in the U. S. state of Colorado. The river is formed by the joining of several streams at the base of Canby Mountain in the San Juan Mountains and it then continues on a southerly route through the desert cities of Albuquerque, and Las Cruces to El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. In the Albuquerque area, the river flows past a number of historic Pueblo villages, including Sandia Pueblo, below El Paso, it serves as part of the border between the United States and Mexico. The official river border measurement ranges from 889 miles to 1,248 miles, a major tributary, the Rio Conchos, enters at Ojinaga, Chihuahua, below El Paso, and supplies most of the water in the border segment. Other well-known tributaries include the Pecos and the smaller Devils, which join the Rio Grande on the site of Amistad Dam. Despite its name and length, the Rio Grande is not navigable by ocean-going ships, in New Mexico, the river flows through the Rio Grande rift from one sediment-filled basin to another, cutting canyons between the basins and supporting a fragile bosque ecosystem on its flood plain. From El Paso eastward, the flows through desert. Although irrigated agriculture exists throughout most of its stretch, it is extensive in the subtropical Lower Rio Grande Valley. The river ends in a small, sandy delta at the Gulf of Mexico, during portions of 2001 and 2002, the mouth of the Rio Grande was blocked by a sandbar
5.
Sierra Gorda
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The Sierra Gorda is an ecological region centered on the northern third of the state of Querétaro and extending into the neighboring states of Guanajuato, Hidalgo and San Luis Potosí. The area is rugged with high steep mountains and deep canyons. As part of the Huasteca Karst, it contains many formations due to erosion of limestone. The area is valued for its wide diversity of plant and animal life. This is due to the blocking of moisture coming in from the Gulf of Mexico, which generally makes the east side fairly moist. Most of the region has been protected in two biosphere reserves, with the one centered in Querétaro established in 1997 and the one centered in Guanajuato established in 2007. The Sierra Gorda is considered to be the far west of the La Huasteca region culturally, the region is on a branch of the Sierra Madre Oriental mountain range and consists of a series of mountain chains that run northwest to southeast, formed 240 million years ago. Most are made of limestone, formed by sea beds from the Jurassic, later there were intrusions of volcanic rock, especially in the eastern portion in Hidalgo state, from which come the mineral deposits of the area. The limestone has been affected by erosion to form the Huasteca Karst, and the area contains a number of caverns. All of the Sierra Gorda is marked by very rugged terrain, altitudes range from just 300 meters above sea level in the Río Santa María Canyon in Jalpan to 3,100 m asl at the Cerro de la Pingüica in Pinal de Amoles. The most important elevation in the Hidalgo area is the Cerro Cangandhó which has an altitude of 2,820 m asl, rainfall also varies greatly from 350 mm to 2,000 mm per year. The micro-environments of the range from conifer forests, oak forests, mostly found on mountain peaks, banana. On the east side, there are deciduous forests, on the west side, bordering the Mexican Plateau, there are desert and semi desert conditions, with a variety of cacti and arid scrub brush. The wide variations of altitude and rainfall favor a wide variety of flora, there are three main rivers in the Sierra Gorda, all of which are part of the Pánuco River basin. These are the Santa María River, the Extoraz or Peñamiller River, all three pass through deep canyons and tend to form borders between the states and municipalities of the region. Santa María marks part of the border between Querétaro and San Luis Potosí, and the Moctezuma River marks part of the border between Querétaro and Hidalgo, the Tula and Moctezuma Rivers meet in the Sierra Gorda of Hidalgo. Here, the Moctezuma River Canyon extends for twelve km and rises 480 meters above the floor, the climate of the region depends on altitude and the fact that the mountains form a natural barrier against the prominent source of moisture, the Gulf of Mexico. The east side of the mountains gets significant more rainfall than the west, forests and even rainforests are found in the east, while the west is dominated by desert and near desert conditions
6.
Mexican Drug War
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The Mexican Drug War is the Mexican theater of the United States War on Drugs, involving an ongoing low-intensity asymmetric war between the Mexican Government and various drug trafficking syndicates. Since 2006, when the Mexican military began to intervene, the principal goal has been to reduce the drug-related violence. Additionally, the Mexican government has claimed that their focus is on dismantling the powerful drug cartels, rather than on preventing drug trafficking. Mexican drug cartels now dominate the wholesale illicit drug market and in 2007 controlled 90% of the entering the United States. Arrests of key leaders, particularly in the Tijuana and Gulf cartels, has led to increasing drug violence as cartels fight for control of the trafficking routes into the United States. Analysts estimate that wholesale earnings from illicit drug sales range from $13.6 to $49.4 billion annually, by the end of Felipe Calderóns administration, the official death toll of the Mexican Drug War was at least 60,000. Estimates set the death toll above 120,000 killed by 2013, given its geographic location, Mexico has long been used as a staging and transshipment point for narcotics and contraband between Latin America and U. S. markets. Towards the end of the 1960s, Mexican narcotic smugglers started to smuggle drugs on a major scale, during the 1970s and early 1980s, Colombias Pablo Escobar was the main exporter of cocaine and dealt with organized criminal networks all over the world. By the mid-1980s, the organizations from Mexico were well-established and reliable transporters of Colombian cocaine, transporters from Mexico usually were given 35% to 50% of each cocaine shipment. This arrangement meant that organizations from Mexico became involved in the distribution, as well as the transportation of cocaine, currently, the Sinaloa Cartel and the Gulf Cartel have taken over trafficking cocaine from Colombia to the worldwide markets. The balance of power between the various Mexican cartels continually shifts as new organizations emerge and older ones weaken and collapse, a disruption in the system, such as the arrests or deaths of cartel leaders, generates bloodshed as rivals move in to exploit the power vacuum. The fighting between rival drug cartels began in earnest after the 1989 arrest of Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, there was a lull in the fighting during the late 1990s but the violence has steadily worsened since 2000. The center-left PRI party ruled Mexico for around 70 years until 2000, during this time, drug cartels expanded their power and corruption, and anti-drug operations focused mainly on destroying marijuana and opium crops in mountainous regions. It is estimated that about 110 people died in Nuevo Laredo between January and August 2005 as a result of the fighting between the Gulf and Sinaloa cartels. The same year, there was another surge in violence in the state of Michoacán as the La Familia Michoacana drug cartel established itself, on December 11,2006, the newly elected President Felipe Calderón sent 6,500 Mexican Army soldiers to Michoacán to end drug violence there. As time passed, Calderón continued to escalate his anti-drug campaign, in there are now about 45,000 troops involved along with state. Mexico is a drug transit and producing country. It is the main supplier of cannabis and an important entry point of South American cocaine
7.
Gulf Cartel
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The Gulf Cartel is a criminal syndicate and drug trafficking organization in Mexico, and perhaps one of the oldest organized crime groups in the country. It is currently based in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, directly across the border from Brownsville and their network is international, and are believed to have dealings with crime groups in Europe, West Africa, Asia, Central America, South America, and the United States. Besides drug trafficking, the Gulf Cartel operates through protection rackets, assassinations, extortions, kidnappings, the members of the Gulf Cartel are known for intimidating the population and for being particularly violent. As of December 2016 Los Zetas Group (Groupo Bravo & Zetas Vieja Escuela made an Alliance with the Gulf cartel to fight against Cartel Del Noroeste. Nonetheless, it was not until 1984 when his nephew Juan García Ábrego founded the Gulf Cartel and this renegotiation, however, forced Garcia Ábrego to guarantee the product’s arrival from Colombia to its destination. Instead, he created warehouses along the Mexican’s northern border to preserve hundreds of tons of cocaine, in addition to trafficking drugs, García Ábrego would ship cash to be laundered, in the millions. Around 1994, it was estimated that the Gulf Cartel handled as much as one-third of all cocaine shipments into the United States from the Cali Cartel suppliers. During the 1990s, the PGR, the Mexican attorney generals office, García Ábregos ties extended beyond the Mexican government corruption and into the United States. The buses made great transportation, as Antonio Ortiz noted, since they were never stopped at the border, in 1989 Claude was removed from the case for unknown reasons, retiring a year later. García Ábrego bribed the agent in an attempt to more information on U. S. law enforcement operations. Juan García Ábregos business had grown to such length that the FBI placed him on the Top Ten Most Wanted in 1995 and he was the first drug trafficker to be on that list. On 14 January 1996, García Ábrego was arrested outside a ranch in Monterrey and he was quickly extradited to the United States where he stood trial eight months after his arrest. García Ábrego was convicted for 22 counts of money laundering, drug possession, jurors also ordered the seizure of $350 million of García Ábrego’s assets — $75 million more than what was previously planned. Juan García Ábrego is currently serving 11 life terms in a security prison in Colorado. In 1996, it was disclosed that García Ábregos organization paid millions of dollars in bribes to politicians and it was later proven after his arrest that the deputy attorney general in charge of Mexicos federal Judicial Police had accumulated more than $9 million US dollars for protecting García Ábrego. García Ábregos arrest was subject to allegations of corruption. It is believed the Mexican government knew all García Ábregos whereabouts all along and had refused to arrest him due to information he possessed about the extent of corruption within the government. The arresting officer, a FJP commander, is believed to have received a bullet-proof Mercury Grand Marquis, García Ábrego was apprehended on January 14,1996, and Mexico shortly after received certification on March 1
8.
Matamoros, Tamaulipas
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Matamoros, officially known as Heroica Matamoros, is a city in the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas. It is located on the bank of the Rio Grande, directly across the border from Brownsville, Texas. Matamoros is the second largest city in the state of Tamaulipas, as of 2016, Matamoros had a population of 520,367. In addition, the Matamoros–Brownsville Metropolitan Area has a population of 1387985, Matamoros is the 39th largest city in Mexico and anchors the second largest metropolitan area in Tamaulipas. Matamoros is one of the fastest growing cities in Mexico, and has one of the fastest growing economies in the country, in Matamoros, the automotive industry hosts the assembly and accessories plants for brands such as General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, BMW, and Mercedes Benz. Likewise, Matamoros economy has historically been based on agriculture, since northern Mexicos biggest irrigation zones are in the municipality, PEMEX announced a multi-billion offshore drilling project for the port of Matamoros, one of the future prospects for Mexicos oil industry. The Mexican National Anthem was played for the first time in public at The Opera Theatre in Matamoros, on another note, Matamoros has a semi-arid climate, with mild winters, and hot, humid summers. Matamoros and Brownsville, Texas are home to the Charro Days and Sombrero Festival, two-nation fiestas that commemorate the heritage of the U. S. there is very little historical evidence about the native tribes that lived in present-day Matamoros. In the year 1749, thirteen enterprising families, twelve from Camargo and one from Reynosa, decided to invest and begin a new, nonetheless, these thirteen families effectively carried out their business plan and structuralized 113 cattle-raising sites. In the year 1774, they named the area San Juan de los Esteros Hermosos. In 1793, to colonize the province of Nuevo Santander, two Franciscan missionaries named Francisco Pueyes and Manuel Júlio Silva established a parish in the plaza of Matamoros. They proposed a new name for the community, Villa del Refugio, in honor of the parish and patron saint, during the Texas Revolution, Matamoros was the fortress for many Mexican soldiers against rebel attacks. In 1851, the city of Matamoros was again heroic for defending soldiers against attacks, after that victory, the state congress granted Matamoros the title of Heroic, countersigned by the Mexican Congress. The future of the city radically changed after Matamoros declared itself a free trade zone in 1858. The Port of Matamoros, also known as the Port of Bagdad, was during the American Civil War one of the commercial ports of the world. The city of Matamoros, Tamaulipas was a strategic and fortified city during the Texas Revolution, the Matamoros Expedition was launched to attack Matamoros and defeat the forces of Antonio López de Santa Anna. At the beginning of the American Civil War, the city of Matamoros was simply a little border town across the Rio Grande from Brownsville. It had, for years, been considered a port
9.
Metropolitan areas of Mexico
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Metropolitan areas in Mexico have been traditionally defined as the group of municipalities that heavily interact with each other, usually around a core city. Northwestern and southeastern states are divided into a number of large municipalities whereas central states are divided into a large number of smaller municipalities. As such, metropolitan areas in the northwest usually do not extend more than one municipality whereas metropolitan areas in the center extend over many municipalities. A few metropolitan areas extend beyond the limits of one state, Greater Mexico City, Puebla-Tlaxcala, Comarca Lagunera, there are a total of fifty-six metropolitan areas of Mexico as defined by the following government bodies, The National Institute of Statistics and Geography. The United States shares a 2, 000-mile border with Mexico, the 2,000 miles is the most frequently crossed international border in the world, with about 250 million legal crossings every year. The distribution of population and urban population in Mexico has been changed significantly by the interaction between settlements in its north and the United States. Metropolitan areas located at the border with the U. S. form transnational conurbations with deep economic and demographic interaction. For example, the San Diego – Tijuana metropolitan area consists of San Diego County in the U. S. and the municipalities of Tijuana, Playas de Rosarito, and Tecate in Mexico. The total population of the region has estimated to be just over 5 million in 2009. A megalopolis, is known in Spanish as a corona regional de ciudades, the megalopolis consists of 173 municipalities and the 16 boroughs of the Federal District, with an approximate total population of almost 27 million people. List of metropolitan areas by population List of metropolitan areas in the Americas by population List of cities in Mexico Demographics of Mexico National Population Council — official website, National Institute of Statistics and Geography — official website
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