What is Mexico. Mexico: general information about the country. Holidays and events

Over the coming weeks, with the support of Olmeca, we will work to break the stereotypes about Mexico. Mexico is a dangerous and poor country where everyone wears a sombrero and eats burritos. Come on, do you really believe that? We have collected 10 of the most popular misconceptions about Mexico to dispel them once and for all.

To find out how things really are, switch tabs. If it doesn't work the first time, feel free to press F5 - believe me, what you learn is worth a couple of extra clicks.

• Reality

Don't go to Mexico
too dangerous

Statistically, you are one-third less likely to be attacked in Mexico than in Spain, and five times less likely than in Canada.

In the agricultural states of the United States, even more dangerous! It is not surprising that Mexico is a stronghold of American retirees who value peace and measured life. There are security issues only in the north - but this is 3 thousand km from the main resort of the country and the tourist center of Cancun! And, since there are no special sights on the border, it still doesn’t make much sense to go towards the United States. By the way, in Mexico there are no interethnic clashes and, accordingly, terrorism.

• Reality

Mexicans live
terribly poor

So that everyone lives so poorly! The minimum wage in Mexico is $140, while in Belarus it is $116.

In Cancun, the average salary is above $1000, the national average in 2015 was $441.
And if we talk about the entire economy, then Mexico is in 14th place in the world. Over the past few years, everything has been very stable in the country, and therefore foreign investors have been drawn here - Mexico has the 4th place in terms of foreign capital among countries with rapidly developing economies. Oil, tourism and remittances from Mexicans abroad are the main sources of money.

• Reality

Fly to Mexico
fabulously expensive

Not Minsk - Vilnius, of course, but even during the season you can buy round-trip tickets for € 640 from Moscow.

For example, Iberia with a change in Madrid.

• Reality

It's hard to get around in Mexico -
be sure to take a taxi

Nope! The quality of the roads is impressive, there are buses even in the most godforsaken villages, and between cities you can comfortably ride buses with air conditioning and telecom.

In Cancun, by the way, there is even a network of bike rentals in the city!

• Reality

Except burritos in Mexican cuisine
there is nothing

This is ridiculous! Meat lovers will appreciate fajita - grilled beef with rice, Aztec goulash cochinita pibil and beef stomach menudo soup.

Yes, Mexicans are used to wrapping everything in tortillas - they get burritos, enchiladas and chimichangas, but that's not all. Enchiladas are chicken and beans wrapped in cheese sauce, and chimichangas are rolls of cheese, meat and tomatoes. Drink cocoa - it was invented in Mexico! Nachos, guacamole and jalapenos are also worth a try in their homeland. If you don’t want to travel that far, it doesn’t matter, soon we will tell you where, apart from Cancun and Mexico City, you can try the best examples of Mexican cuisine.

• Reality

Tequila in Mexico is made from cacti.

For the production of tequila take the core of the blue agave. And this is not a cactus, but a succulent of the asparagus family.

By the way, for the production of a quality drink, the agave plant must be at least 8 years old.

Locals prefer to drink tequila from special narrow and tall glasses (caballito - "horse"), washed down with sangrita - a non-alcoholic mix of orange and lemon juice, salt and chili.

• Reality

All Mexicans are crazy about mariachi

Yeah, but Belarusians only listen to Pesnyary. In fact, modern Mexican music is so diverse that it is a topic for a separate article. But if you are unbearable, you can download NWLA or Bengala to the player.

• Reality

Every self-respecting Mexican
wears a poncho and sombrero

Not really. Modified Spanish wide-brimmed hat ( Spanish sombra - shadow) has become popular in Mexico since the 16th century: straw - among the poor, felt - among the richer Mexicans. And Mexican peasants liked to dress up in ponchos (although they say that the Incas were the first to come up with these warm capes), but now they still prefer more practical things.

Today, ponchos and sombreros are just elements of the national costume and hyped tourist souvenirs. To think that all Mexicans only wear them is akin to the stereotype of Russians in earflaps and kokoshniks.

United Mexican States, state V Yu.-Z. parts of Sev. America. In 1821 G. declared independence Spanish colonies of New Spain. New state took the name of Mexico City (Spanish Mexico, Mejico) by the name of the state capital of the city of Mexico City (Spanish Mexico, Mejico) . In Russia, the name of the country is traditionally used in a form that differs from the name of the city.

Geographical names of the world: Toponymic dictionary. - M: AST. Pospelov E.M. 2001 .

Mexico

(Mexico, name from them. the supreme god of the Aztecs - Mexitli), the state in the South Sev. America, washed in the west by the Pacific, and in the east by the Atlantic Ocean. Pl. 1964.4 thousand km², divided into 31 states and the capital federal district. Population 101.9 million people (2001), capital - mexico city ; other major cities: Guadalajara , Monterrey , puebla , Leon , Ciudad Juarez . Long before the arrival of Europeans, Indian civilizations existed here, among which the Toltecs and Maya stood out; from the 15th century - a powerful state of the Aztecs with the capital Tenochtitlan. The colonization of M. by the Spanish conquistadors (E. Cortes) began in 1519; in 1521 Tenochtitlan was captured, at the end of the 16th century. - the whole country, and for three centuries M. - a colony of Spain. In 1810, the struggle for independence began, which was proclaimed in 1821. Since 1824 - a federal republic United Mexican States ; the head of state is the president; legislative power in the National Congress consisting of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. As a result of the wars of 1846–48. more than 1/2 of the territory went to the USA.
More than 2/3 of the territory - Mexican highlands . Open in the north, it is bounded in the east, south, and west by a thick wall of mountain ranges. Dissected by deep river canyons, they drop steeply to the adjacent coastal plains: Zap. Sierra Madre - To California Hall. , on the other side of which there is a narrow mountainous peninsula California ; Vost. Sierra Madre - to the coastal low. Mexican Hall. ; to the south - Transverse Volcanic Sierra (volcanoes Orizaba , popocatepetl , Colima, etc.) separates the highlands from the mountains of the South. M.; mountains rise parallel to the Pacific Ocean South Sierra Madre and Chiapas. The most significant plains are the Mexican Lowland. and the karst plain of the Yucatan Peninsula with large caves ( Huatla). high seismicity. The climate in the north is subtropical, dry continental with sharp fluctuations in seasonal and daily temperatures; the rest of the hour - tropical, trade winds: wet on the windward east. mountain slopes and southeast. plains and dry in the west. More than 1/2 of the territory is arid regions. Stormy rapids rivers with large reserves of hydro resources are navigable only in the lower reaches; used ch. arr. for irrigation. The largest river (border with the USA) - Rio Bravo del Norte ; to the SW. - volcanic and tectonic lakes (the largest - Chapala ). 14% of the territory under forests: on the Caribbean coast - humid evergreen tropical; in the Pacific - variable humid deciduous tropical; in the mountains framing the Mexican Highlands, deciduous and mixed forests of the subtropics and the temperate zone. On the highlands - semi-desert and desert vegetation: cacti, agaves, yuccas. Over 50 national parks.
Mexicans are a nation that has developed as a result of mixing Indians and Spanish settlers. 55% - Spanish-Indian mestizos; 29% - Indians (mainly in the central and southern regions; partially retain their languages ​​​​and cultural isolation); 15% are descendants of Europeans. Official language is Spanish. The predominant religion is Catholicism. Citizens 73% (1995). Moscow is one of the leading oil producers. and oil-exporting countries of the world (fields on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico and on its shelf). Nature is also mined. gas, silver, fluorspar (among the main producers of the world), lead, zinc, copper, manganese, sulfur, etc. Ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy; oil refinery, chemical and petrochem. prom-st; mash-tion and metalworking. Text., sewing, leather-shoes, food. prom. Up to 2/3 processed prom-sti is concentrated in Mexico City, Monterrey and Guadalajara. The main agricultural crops: corn, wheat, sorghum, beans, rice, coffee, sugar. reed, heneken (a type of agave); tomatoes, pineapples, bananas, watermelons, melons, mangoes, etc. Pasture meat and wool cattle. Fishing, marine fisheries. Crafts: stone carving, pottery, textiles, glassware, silver jewelry. Significant trade. fleet (about 50% - tankers). The main ports to the east. coast: Veracruz, Tampico, Coatzacoalcos; to the west: Salina Cruz, Guaymas. Moscow is a country of ancient culture that has made a valuable contribution to the development of world civilization. A number of the largest high fur boots; museums in Mexico City, Merida, Puebla and other cities. Artists received worldwide recognition: D. Rivera and D. Siqueiros; writers: X. Rulfo and C. Fuentes. Tourists are attracted by: Pacific seaside resorts ( Acapulco ), miner. and hot sulfur springs; monuments of Indian culture (near Mexico City, the remains of the city of Teotihuacan - in the 9th-10th centuries, the capital of the Toltec Indians, with grandiose pyramids of the Sun and the Moon, temples, palaces, stadiums, observatories, wall paintings; centers of Maya, Aztec culture, etc.); bullfight (rodeo), art. crafts, itinerant folk orchestras "marjachi", archit. monuments of the 16th–19th centuries. Cash unit - a new peso.

Dictionary of modern geographical names. - Yekaterinburg: U-Factoria. Under the general editorship of Acad. V. M. Kotlyakova. 2006 .

The United Mexican States, the state occupying the northern, widest part of the isthmus, stretching south of the US border and connecting North America with South America. In the west, the coast of Mexico is washed by the waters of the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of California, in the east by the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea; in the south it borders on Guatemala and Belize. Mexico was the cradle of the ancient civilizations of the New World. Now it is home to a fifth of the total population of Latin America.
NATURE
Terrain relief. Most of Mexico is occupied by the Mexican Highlands, passing in the north into the high plains and plateaus of Texas and New Mexico; from the east, west and south it is surrounded by deeply dissected mountain ranges. The central part of this upland consists of vast depressions - bolsons - with gentle slopes; the block ridges separating them are often crowned with volcanoes. The surface of the plateau gradually rises to the south and forms a wedge at approximately 19–20°S. in the volcanic zone, where the Transverse Volcanic Sierra ridge stretches in the latitudinal direction. The northern part of the plateau, Northern Mesa, is formed by merged bolsons, depressions with salt marshes or salt lakes in the center; the largest of them are Bolson de Mapimi, the bottom of which is at an altitude of 900 m above sea level, and Bolson de Mairan (1100 m). Above the general level of the plateau, blocky mountains rise sharply to a height of up to 900 m. Most of this desert region is drainless; only in the north flows the largest river in Mexico, the Rio Bravo del Norte (in the United States called the Rio Grande) and its only tributary, the Conchos. Further south, the surface of the highlands rises; Numerous intermountain depressions are located here at elevations of 1800–2400 m above sea level. and are separated by raised arid plateaus, above which block ridges rise several hundred meters. In the extreme south of the highlands is the so-called Central Region, which is the center of the political and economic life of the country, where the capital is located and most of the population is concentrated. The relief of this region clearly shows depressions, the bottoms of which are at the level of 1500–2600 m; all of them, with the exception of the valley of Mexico City, where the capital is located, are drained by rivers belonging to the basins of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The basins are separated by hilly ridges of soft contours, cut through by deep and narrow river valleys. Above the surface of the plateau, the Transverse Volcanic Sierra, which limits it from the south, rises sharply, formed by almost merged cones of volcanoes. Here are the highest peaks: Orizaba (Sitlaltepetl), 5610 m; Popocatepetl, 5452 m; Istaxihuatl, 5286 m; Nevado de Toluca, 4392 m; Malinche, 4461 m, and Nevado de Colima, 4265 m. In the Valley of Mexico, 80 km long and approx. 50 km once there were five shallow lakes with marshy shores; the largest of them was Lake Texcoco, in the center of which, on the island, was the capital of the Aztecs - Tenochtitlan. Over time, the lake was drained and in its place is the modern capital, the city of Mexico City. The largest river in the Central Region, the Lerma River, flows through the depressions of Toluca, Guanajuato and Jalisco and flows into Lake Chapala, which has a drain into the Pacific Ocean through the river. Rio Grande de Santiago. Other depressions - Aguascalientes and Puebla - are also drained by the rivers of the Pacific Ocean basin.
The western border of the highlands is formed by the Western Sierra Madre mountain system, reaching 160 km in width and in some places rising above 3000 m. This is one of the most powerful and insurmountable mountain barriers in the Western Hemisphere. The railroad linking Central Mesa with the Pacific coast, like the highway, goes around these mountains from the south and rises to the city of Guadalajara. Only in 1961 was a railway line built from Chihuahua to the coast - the first railway laid through the mountains of the Western Sierra Madre; in the same year, a paved road was completed connecting Durango and the port of Mazatlán. The mountain system to the east of the highlands, the Sierra Madre Oriental, is relatively easier to pass. The most convenient routes through it pass through Monterrey in the north and through Veracruz in the southeast. The Pan-American Highway, starting from the city of Nuevo Laredo on the US-Mexico border, follows the eastern foot of the mountains to approximately the latitude of the city of Tampico and then rises sharply into the mountains and crosses the central mountain range. In the south, the zone of deeply dissected mountain relief is much wider than in the west and east of the uplands. The Transverse Volcanic Sierra breaks off in a steep ledge to the tectonic basin of the Balsas River, deeply protruding into the mountainous region; even at a great distance from the ocean, on the meridian of Mexico City, the bottom of the valley has a height of only approx. 500 m above sea level South of the Balsas Valley is the region of the dissected plateaus of Guerrero and Oaxaca, collectively known as the Southern Sierra Madre; the erosive activity of watercourses has created here a complex network of deep valleys and steep ridges, leaving almost no flat areas. This southern mountainous region, which is generally considered to form the southern end of the geological structures of North America, ends in steep ledges facing the Pacific Ocean and the low isthmus of Tehuantepec.
The three main physical-geographical regions outside the mountainous region described above are the northern part of the Pacific coast, which includes the peninsula of California, or Baja California; the Mexican Lowland and the Yucatan Peninsula; and the mountain system of Chiapas, located between the isthmus of Tehuantepec and the border of Guatemala. Most of the territory, located in the northern part of the Pacific coast and separated from the rest of the country by the inaccessible mountains of the Eastern Sierra Madre, is a desert. The main surface elements - the Sonoran Desert, a depression located on the northern extension of the Gulf of California and in some places lowered below sea level, and the blocky mountains of the California Peninsula - continue north into the United States. The vast arid terraced surfaces of the California Peninsula for the most part do not have watercourses, but in the southern part of the mainland coast of the Gulf of California, mountain spurs and drainless depressions alternate with flat-bottomed valleys of rivers flowing from the mountains. The Mexican lowland of the Gulf is widest in the north, where it merges with the coastal plains of Texas. Further south, from Tampico to the northern edge of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, it is a narrow swampy coastal strip, and further widens and merges with the low-lying limestone plain of the Yucatán Peninsula. On the isthmus of Tehuantepec, the distance between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean is only 210 km, and the highest height is 240 m. The Chiapas mountain region already belongs structurally to Central America. In this area, all the main landforms are elongated parallel to the Pacific coast: a narrow coastal lowland; the Sierra Madre de Chiapas ridge rising steeply above it up to 2400 m high; the Chiapas rift valley, the bottom of which is located at 450–900 m above sea level, drained by tributaries of the Grijalva River; finally, a number of blocky, deeply dissected mountain ranges with a height of more than 3000 m in places.
Climate. Almost half of the entire territory of Mexico has an arid or semi-arid climate. Dry conditions are characteristic of the entire northern zone along the border with the United States, from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, and extend in the central part of the highlands south to about 22°N. Further south, rainfall gradually increases, reaching 580 mm per year in Mexico City and 890 mm per year in the Puebla Depression. Only the states of Veracruz and Tabasco on the Gulf Coast and the Pacific coast of Chiapas receive enough rain throughout the year. Most of the precipitation falls in summer, and winters are relatively dry. Temperatures and vegetation depend on altitude. In Mexico, the hot belt - the so-called. tierra caliente - located from sea level to about 600 m or slightly higher; temperate belt - tierra templada - extends above it, up to a height of approx. 1850 m, and even higher, up to the very snowy border (3950–4550 m) are the so-called. "cold lands" (tierra fría). Most of the central highlands are located at an altitude of 1200 to 2400 m above sea level, which corresponds to the upper part of the temperate zone and the lower part of the cold one. Although seasonal temperature amplitudes are small and, with the exception of the far north, average approx. 8°C, daily fluctuations are significant, and nights are usually cold in the mountainous region. On the coastal lowlands, summer temperatures exceed 27 ° C. Especially long and hot summers are characteristic of the lowlands adjacent to the Gulf of California.
Vegetable world. Due to the low amount of rain, the northern half of Mexico is covered with mesquite trees, cacti, yucca and prickly sarcobatus wormleaf. In the lower part of the slopes of the Sierra Madre, turf grasses alternate with low-growing poplars and willows, and sparse oaks grow among the grasses above. The mountain range stretching along the California Peninsula is covered with pine woodlands, and the arid west coast is occupied by cacti, mesquite trees, and bizarre columnar fouquierias, standing alone among the desert, which resemble an inverted carrot with a thick conical trunk (up to 6 m tall) with several root-shaped branches. To the south, along both coasts of Mexico, the lowland vegetation gradually changes from scrub and sparse grasslands to savanna woodlands, starting at about the latitude of Tampico. To the south of Veracruz, abundant rains fall, the coast is swampy with dense tropical jungle, in places alternating with patches of damp savannas. Rain forest covers the state of Tabasco, southern Yucatan and the open northern slopes of the Chiapas mountains. The north of Yucatan is occupied by semi-deciduous tropical forest, grasslands and shrubs. There are especially many types of agaves, one of which is the Fourcree-shaped agave ( Agave fourcroides) - gives the fiber "eneken", or "Yucatan sisal", going to the manufacture of paper, ropes and container cloth.
In the southern half of Mexico, the climate and vegetation vary with altitude. The hot belt is covered with dense semi-deciduous forest. In the temperate zone, many subtropical evergreens grow, mixed with oaks and other broad-leaved deciduous trees higher up the slopes. The lower strip of the cold belt is occupied by a pine-oak forest, which is at around approx. 3050 m above sea level turns into pine-fir. Near the snow line, the highlands are covered with alpine meadows.
POPULATION
Demography. According to an estimate for 2004, the population of Mexico was 104.96 million people (in 1980 - 69,979 thousand people). Population growth over the past decades has been one of the highest in the world, averaging 3% annually. Population growth began to decline markedly in the early 1970s and stood at 1.8% per year in the late 1990s. This decline was due in large part to government efforts to implement the Universal Population Act of 1973. This Act established a National Demographic Council to conduct a government family planning campaign that aimed to reduce population growth by 2000 to 1% annually. In the early 1990s, one in five pregnancies in Mexico ended with an illegal abortion. In 1995, the birth rate was less than 24.6 newborns per 1,000 inhabitants, and the death rate was 5.1 deaths per 1,000 inhabitants. Emigration to the United States also contributed to a decrease in population growth in Mexico.
The extremely rapid population growth from 1920 to 1998 was a new phenomenon in the recent history of Mexico. The population of the country, when it was conquered by the Spaniards, was at least 4.5 million people, and possibly reached 25 million people, but the conquest and subsequent colonial exploitation so destroyed Mexican society that by 1605 there was hardly one left in Mexico a million people. It took at least two centuries to restore the population. In 1821, the population of Mexico was about 6-7 million people. The number of Mexicans more than doubled over the next 90 years to 15 million in 1910, but a decade of civil war reduced that to almost 14 million in 1921. Mexico's population boom began after World War II.
Ethnic origin and language. Pre-Columbian Mexico was characterized by great ethnic diversity. One of the scientists singled out more than 700 tribal groups at the beginning of the conquest. These peoples spoke almost 100 different languages ​​and dialects of twelve linguistic families.
In 1990, almost one million Indians spoke only 52 indigenous languages ​​and dialects. In addition, more than two million Indians spoke both their native language and Spanish. The main Indian languages ​​still spoken in Mexico are Nahuatl (the language of the Aztecs, whose various dialects represent the largest linguistic array), Mixtec, Maya, Zapotec, Otomi, Totonac, Mazatec, Tzotzil, Cendil, Masawa, Miche, Huastec , Chinantec and Tarasco.
An estimated 300,000 Spaniards migrated to Mexico during the three centuries of colonial rule. They intermarried with the Indians, and today mestizos predominate in the population of Mexico. Most of the Negroes, estimated at less than 200,000, who were brought in during the colonial period to work in the mines and plantations, were assimilated by the local population.
After independence, there was no large-scale immigration to Mexico. However, there were two main periods of influx - during the reign of Diaz, when approx. 11 thousand Italian immigrants, and immediately after the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), when approx. 25 thousand loyalist refugees. A small number of Chinese, Japanese, Germans, British, French and other Europeans also immigrated to Mexico. From the middle of the 20th century the largest movements of people occurred between Mexico and the United States.
Placement of the population. In 1990, as has been the case since pre-Columbian times, more than half of the population (56%) was concentrated in the central region, which occupies less than 1/7 of the entire territory. This region has always been the political, economic and cultural core of Mexico. The rest of the population was distributed in 1990 into four regions in the following proportion: 1) North - 20%; 2) Baja California -2%; 3) the southern part of the Pacific coast - 10%; and 4) the Gulf of Mexico region, 12%.
In 1990 ca. 1/4 of the population lived in communities with a population of less than 2,500 and was considered rural, and ca. 75% lived in larger communities and were considered urban. Although the urban agglomerations of Mexico City, Guadalajara and Montterey occupy only 2% of the country's territory, they are home to 25% of its population. There are over 100,000 villages and hamlets, most of which have fewer than 400 inhabitants.
Although Mexico is mainly a country of small communities, there are strong trends towards urbanization and industrialization, which are expressed in the form of population growth and industrial development. Urban growth has been particularly rapid in the Mexico City area, along the northern border, and in oil-booming areas along the Gulf Coast.
The highest concentration of population and industry is noted in the capital, the city of Mexico City, whose population in 1997 was 8489 thousand people. The urban agglomeration of Mexico City was 18.8 million inhabitants. The main regional urban and industrial centers are Guadalajara in the west, with a population of 1.6 million in 1995 and 3 million. in the urban agglomeration; Monterrey in the north, with a population of 1.1 million and an urban agglomeration of 2.7 million; and Puebla, southeast of the capital, with a population of 1.1 million.
The rest of the major cities of Mexico with a population of more than 500 thousand people in 1995 include state capitals, ports and border communities: Ciudad Juarez (1 million people), Tijuana (992 thousand), San Luis Mexicali (696 thousand) , Culiacan (696 thousand), Acapulco (687 thousand), Chihuahua (628 thousand), Potosi (625 thousand), San Luis Potosi (625 thousand), Aguascalientes (582 thousand).
Religion. Since the time of forced conversion to Christianity by the Spanish conquistadors, the vast majority of Mexicans - in 1990 almost 90% - have been, at least formally, Roman Catholics. Nevertheless, Mexico is characterized by an extremely active anti-clerical tradition. Mexican revolutionaries waged a very long and often bitter struggle against the church hierarchy, which until the 1850s owned almost half of Mexico's land, controlled almost all schools and hospitals, and functioned virtually like a state within a state. Under the Mexican constitution, religious organizations are prohibited from owning land or operating schools; monastic orders are prohibited; religious services may only be conducted inside church buildings owned by the state; and the clergy are prohibited from voting and publicly commenting on political issues. However, since the 1940s, Catholic hierarchs have abandoned harsh forms of opposing the Mexican Revolution, and the government has suspended the implementation of anti-clerical laws. More than 3% of Mexicans adhere to some form of Protestantism, and there are small but thriving Jewish and Baha'i communities.
GOVERNMENT AND POLICY
Constitution. There were three main laws in Mexico. The Constitution of 1824 established a federal system, modeled on the US federal system. The 1857 constitution granted many political and civil rights. The current constitution, which was proclaimed on February 5, 1917, retained the liberal democratic character and a significant part of the 1857 document, but also contained revolutionary provisions.
The 1917 document included the principles of agrarian reform, the right to work, the principles of social justice, nationalism and anti-clericalism. This document deprived officials of all major political organizations of the right to re-election for a second term and greatly strengthened the executive power.
Federal authority.
Executive power. Officially, Mexico has a federal form of government. In fact, political power is concentrated in the hands of the national government in the city of Mexico City. Executive power is vested in the President, who is directly elected by popular vote for a single six-year term. The chief executive must be at least 35 years old, must also have lived in the country during the year leading up to the election, and be Mexican-born. New elections are called in the event of the death of the president or his inability to perform his duties during the first two years of the term.
The President of Mexico since 2000 is Vicente Fox Quesada. Born in 1942, he studied management at Mexico City and Harvard University, then worked at the Coca-Cola concern, where he was responsible for work in Central America, founded an agricultural company and his own factory. In 1987 he joined the conservative National Action Party. In 1988, Fox was elected to Congress, and in 1995 he won the guanajuato gubernatorial election.
The cabinet consists of 19 government departments: interior, foreign affairs, defense, navy, finance, energy and mining, trade, agriculture and water resources, communications and transportation, social development, education, labor and welfare, presidential administration, agrarian reform, health and welfare, tourism, fisheries, justice and the main control and financial department.
Legislature. The Constitution vests legislative power in a bicameral Congress. The lower house, or Chamber of Deputies, consists of 500 members. Voters elect deputies for a three-year term on the basis of universal suffrage: one deputy from every 250,000 people of the population or for its part that exceeds 125,000 people. Of the 500 deputies, 300 are elected in single-mandate constituencies; the remaining 200 people - on the basis of proportional representation. The upper house, or Senate, consists of 128 members, 4 members from each state and federal capital district, directly elected by popular vote for a six-year term, with a full rotation of its members every six years. The 1993 reform grants opposition parties at least 25% of seats in the Senate. The Congress meets annually in session, which is held from September 1 to December 31. During the adjournment of Parliament, legislative powers are vested in a standing committee appointed by both houses. The constitution prohibits re-elections for all government posts, incl. to both houses of Congress. In 1993, an amendment to the constitution was adopted, excluding the so-called. "subordination point", according to which, if a party wins 35% of the votes throughout the country, it automatically receives a majority of seats in the Chamber of Deputies. This amendment prevents any party from winning more than 315 seats in the lower house. Amendments to the constitution are adopted with the approval of at least 325 deputies. Consequently, none of the parties by itself can amend the country's basic law. Until the early 1990s, congressional control of the executive existed only in theory; the president's power over the legislature was almost absolute, mainly because the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party held the lion's share of the seats in both chambers. By-elections in July 1997 deprived the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (IRP) of the majority in the Chamber of Deputies, although they retained the majority of seats in the Senate. After the 2000 elections, none of the parties has a majority in Congress.
Judicial system. At the head of the federal judiciary is a 21-judge supreme court appointed by the president for a six-year term with the consent of the senate. The Supreme Court has judicial and administrative authority over the lower courts. The president also appoints judges to 12 circuit courts, consisting of three judges; in 9 unitary mobile district courts and 68 district courts, consisting of one judge. Courts of special jurisdiction were created by law, incl. the tax court and the arbitration department responsible for resolving labor disputes.
State authorities. Mexico is made up of 31 states and one federal district. The Central Region covers the Capital Federal District and the states of Aguascalientes, Guanajuato, Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico City, Michoacán, Morelos, Puebla, Querétaro and Tlaxcala. The northern, largest region, consists of the states of Coahuila, Chihuahua, Durango, Nuevo Leon, San Luis Potosi, Tamaulipas and Zacatecas. The North Pacific region includes the states of Baja California North, Baja California South, Nayarit, Sinaloa, and Sonora. The South Pacific region includes the states of Colima, Chiapas, Guerrero and Oaxaca. The Gulf of Mexico region consists of the states of Campeche, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, Veracruz and Yucatan.
The constitution gives powers to the states that the central government does not, although in practice the Mexican states have limited real power.
Political parties. Mexico has had a democratic constitution since 1917. Since the 1920s, the country has officially had a multi-party system. However, until the 1990s, the ruling party enjoyed a real monopoly on power. Institutional Revolutionary Party, created in 1929 and called until 1938 the National Revolutionary, and until 1946 - the Party of the Mexican Revolution.
The party was formed as an association of government groups, initially uniting politicians and government officials and aimed to rally the diverse forces that took part in the Mexican Revolution - from the poorest peasantry to the richest entrepreneurs. In 1938 it was reorganized by President Lazaro Cardenas, giving the party a mass character. Four sectors were created - the peasant sector, represented by the National Peasant Confederation, the worker sector (based on the Confederation of Workers of Mexico), the people's sector (individual members), and the military sector (liquidated in 1940). During the years of the ruling party's existence, it almost merged with state structures, and its activities were largely financed from the state budget. The PRI enjoyed the full support of the media. The PRI nomenclature skillfully manipulated the course and results of the elections.
Ideologically, the PRI proclaimed its allegiance to the ideals of the Mexican Revolution, which it regarded as "permanent" and continuing in an "institutional" way. The party called for the harmony of class interests and the peaceful resolution of social disputes and contradictions. She advocated active state intervention in the economy and state control over the main sectors of the economy. The PRI is an observer in the Socialist International.
In the 1980s, the leadership of the PRI abandoned its former statist ideas and began to pursue neoliberal economic policies, privatizing the public sector, actively attracting foreign investment and striving for accelerated integration of the country into the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The reorientation of the party caused internal divisions to increase, and in the late 1980s many prominent figures who disagreed with the new policy left the party. In 1992, the PRI proclaimed "social liberalism" as its ideology.
At the same time, the positions of the IRP in society, which had previously seemed unshakable, began to fluctuate. There was growing dissatisfaction with the economic course of the ruling party, as well as its monopoly on power. After 1988, when PRI candidate Carlos Salinas de Gortari won the presidential election with just over 50% of the vote, it remained the largest party but lost its political hegemony and was forced to implement a series of political reforms, including the creation of the Federal Electoral Institute and the Federal Electoral Tribunal in 1990, expanding opposition congressional representation, regulating campaign finance and providing more equal opportunities for parties to access the media (1996).
In the late 1990s, under the influence of the deteriorating socio-economic situation and political instability, the social democratic wing of the PRI was strengthened. She still advocated market reforms, but at the same time defended the leading role of state economic regulation, the implementation of broad social programs, and the development of democracy in all areas.
Political fluctuations did not save the PRI from the loss of political power. In 1994, its presidential candidate Ernesto Zedillo still managed to win the presidential election, but already in 1997 the party lost its majority in Congress. In 2000, the PRI candidate lost the presidential election and she went into opposition. In the congressional elections in 2003, the PRI was again successful, and it regained its position as the most powerful political force in the country.
National Action Party (NAP) - It was founded in 1939 by conservatives who were dissatisfied with the reforms of President L. Cardenas. She advocated for private property, the basic principles of Catholicism. The MHP denounced the separation of church and state, nationalization, and other state regulation of the economy. In the 1950s - 1960s, the party adopted the ideas of Christian humanism, drew closer to the international Christian democracy (PND is part of the International of Christian Democratic Parties). In the ranks of the party there was a sharp struggle between the traditional conservative and moderate reformist wing. In the 1980s, the PAP began to act under the banner of democratization of the political and electoral system, held protests (hunger strikes, blockade of transport routes, capture of municipalities). In the 1990s, the party became even more vocal in its criticism of the ruling PRI for its "inconsistency" in pursuing neoliberal policies. Combining economic neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism in politics, the MHP demanded the maximum development of private initiative, even greater privatization and reduction of state regulation, strengthening cooperation with the Catholic Church. The party believed that the state could solve social issues only where private initiative was impossible or insufficient.
In the 1980s, the MHP received 15–18% of the vote in elections. In 1989, her candidate managed to win the first governorship (in Baja California). In the 1990s, the party won gubernatorial elections in the states of Chihuahua, Jalisco, Guanajuato, Nuevo León, Querétaro and Sinaloa. In 1997, she won the position of the leading opposition force from the left, and in 2000, Vicente Fox, the MHP candidate, won the presidential election. Since that time, it has become the ruling party of Mexico.
Democratic Revolution Party (PDR) - Mexico's leading left-wing opposition party. Founded in 1989 on the initiative of former presidential candidate Cuatemoc Cardenas. C. Cardenas, son of Lazaro Cardenas (President of Mexico in 1936-1940) and leader of the "Democratic Current" in the Institutional Revolutionary Party, left the PRI in 1987, put forward his candidacy for president from the National Democratic Front - a coalition of left and center parties and gathered in 1988 over 31% of the vote. From the supporters of Cardenas, the Mexican Socialist Party (created in 1987 by Mexican communists and other leftist organizations) and other movements, the PDR was formed. The party declared itself the heir to the democratic traditions of the Mexican Revolution, a nationalist, democratic and people's party. She advocated “the independence of the country, including in the economic field, for political and democratic reforms, decentralization and respect for human rights. The DA criticized the neo-liberal policies of the authorities and their anti-social consequences.”
The PDR joined the Socialist International. However, it is ideologically very heterogeneous, including social democrats, socialists, former communists, Trotskyists, nationalists and populists. Until 1994, she refused to cooperate with the ruling PDR on any issues. There were clashes between supporters of both parties. In subsequent years, the leadership of the party took a more moderate position: it began to cooperate with the PRI in carrying out political reforms, softened criticism of the country's integration into the world market and privatization.
Despite the early successes of Cárdenas and his supporters in the late 1980s, the PDR failed to establish itself as the leading opposition party in the 1990s; this role had to be ceded to the MHP. Nevertheless, its positions are strong in the federal district and some states of the country. In 1997, K. Cardenas was elected mayor of the capital. In 2000, the population elected another member of the PDR, López Obrador, to this post.
In the 2000 general election, the PDR led the Alliance for Mexico, which also included Labor Party, Convergence for Democracy, Social Alliance Party And Nationalist Society Party.
Green Ecological Party of Mexico (GEPM)– formed in 1980 as the National Ecological Alliance; in 1986 it was reorganized into the Mexican Green Party and in 1988 supported the candidacy of C. Cardenas in the presidential elections. In 1993 officially registered as ZEPM.
He stands for the preservation of nature and the environment, for a return to traditional cultural values ​​and pacifism. The fundamental principles of the Mexican Greens, referring to the ancient Indian view of nature, are love, justice and freedom for all living beings on the planet. Socially, the party strives for self-sufficiency, decentralization and harmony between society and nature.
In the 2000 elections, the Mexican Greens formed a bloc with the MHP in order to remove the PRI from power and open the way for further democratization of the country. In the congressional elections in 2003 they blocked with the PRI.
Labor Party (PT)- a socialist party founded in 1990 as a result of the unification of a number of former Trotskyist and Maoist organizations in the North of the country. The PT recognizes political pluralism and rejects ideological "dogmatism". He stands for the broad development of mass social movements, the fight against imperialism and the rejection of the recommendations of international financial institutions, for the broad and comprehensive democratization of society. Recognizing the existence of various forms of ownership, the PT at the same time fights against monopolies, for social equality and justice. The goal of the PT is the destruction of capitalism through mass social movements, the creation of alternative organs of the people's "counter-power" and, in the long term, the achievement of a pluralistic, democratic and humane society of self-government. In the 2000 elections, the PT was aligned with the PDR and other leftist parties.
In addition to the main parties, many different political groupings operate in Mexico: social democracy(left organization), Democratic Center Party, Genuine Party of the Mexican Revolution(centrist, founded in 1957 by former generals and leaders of the Mexican Revolution and advocates for the constitution of 1917, serving as one of the centers of attraction for opposition factions in the PRI), socialist coalition, Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party,Socialist and Workers' Union and the Workers' League for Socialism, Maoist Red Labor Party (Marxist-Leninist), former pro-Albanian Communist Party of Mexico (Marxist-Leninist),People's Democratic Revolutionary Party,International communist movement(left-communist), etc. There are scattered anarchist groups.
Various military-political groups and movements exist in the country and are fighting against the government. The largest - Zapatista National Liberation Army (SANO), which in 1994 raised an armed uprising in the state of Chiapas. SANO stands for democratic and social reforms, in defense of the rights of the Indian peoples of Mexico, against neo-liberalism and free trade. She actively cooperates with the international anti-globalization movement. ESLN supporters from all over Mexico created a political movement - Zapatista National Liberation Front.
ECONOMY
Economic history. Being a Spanish colony for 300 years, Mexico was for Spain a cheap source of raw materials and a market for goods. Such a policy enriched the very small Mexican elite, which consisted of Spaniards and Creoles (Mexicans of Spanish origin), but hindered economic development. The economy was based mainly on the cultivation of corn, legumes, chilli peppers and cattle for domestic consumption, on the extraction of silver and other minerals, and on the cultivation of tobacco for export. It was highly dependent on the use of the labor of the local population, which consisted mainly of Indians (later mestizos). The Wars of Independence (1810–1821) and the instability that followed them devastated the country and slowed down the investment process. At the end of the 19th century Dictator Porfirio Diaz (reigned 1876–1910) used profligate financial incentives to attract foreign investors who set about exploiting Mexico's oil fields and building railroads, highways, port facilities, telegraph lines, and power line systems. This caused rapid economic development and the growth of the middle class, which resented the provision of more favorable conditions for foreigners. As the production of coffee, cotton, sugar cane, and Mexican hemp increased due to the reduction of subsistence agriculture, most peasants suffered as the lands that belonged to their community, the so-called "ejidos", were occupied by private landowners and they were forced to work on plantations. who specialized in the cultivation of export crops, or all together to leave the land. The movement to return the land to the peasants and against the economic domination of foreigners led to the outbreak of the Revolution of 1910, which overthrew Díaz.
The new government took active steps to "Mexicanize" the economy. In the 1930s, President Lázaro Cárdenas nationalized the country's railroads, expropriated 17 foreign companies that controlled the oil industry, and implemented a major land reform.
During World War II, the government set about creating an Indigenous Import Replacement Industry (ICI), a concept that spread widely throughout the Western Hemisphere as a result of the Great Depression. This strategy was based on the creation of protectionist barriers to encourage "nascent domestic industries" that would be able to produce goods that were previously bought abroad. Other incentives for entrepreneurship included tax breaks, low-interest loans, cheap electricity, compliant trade unionism, and the construction of an extensive network of roads, railroads, airports, and communications facilities. This government policy caused an "economic miracle", which manifested itself in high rates of economic growth.
The Mexican economy began to improve in the early 1970s with the discovery of large oil fields in Tabasco, Chiapas, and the Gulf of Campeche by Petroleos Mechicanos (Pemex), the state-owned oil company, but soon found itself unable to service its huge foreign debt when oil prices began to fall during the recession of 1981–1982. Emergency loans from the US and international financial institutions, accompanied by a sharp depreciation of the peso and austerity, saved the country from bankruptcy.
Convinced that pursuing a policy of encouraging domestic production in order to replace imports would hold back the development of the country, President Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado (1982–1988) embarked on a reform aimed at removing protectionist barriers. De la Madrid and Salinas sought to obtain foreign loans, attract modern technology, encourage non-oil exports and fight inflation, and promote Mexico's membership in GATT.
In 1988, the conclusion of a free trade agreement between the US and Canada prompted Salinas to work out a similar agreement that would include Mexico. Negotiations lasting over a year led to the creation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which was approved by the US Congress in November 1993 and allowed to extend free trade conditions not only to industrial, but also to agricultural goods; household, transport, banking and investment services; and intellectual property such as copyrights, trademarks and computer software. The three states also agreed to enforce laws on the environment and labor, incl. laws on child protection, minimum wages and workplace safety. NAFTA went into effect on January 1, 1994.
Even before taking office on December 1, 1994, future president Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León promised to "provide protection" for small businesses, midsize companies, and peasants who could not compete with the more efficient US and Canadian corporations.
Even before the new president could deliver on his promises, he was faced with an economic downturn. A bloated trade deficit, huge external debt and an increase in the money supply led to the depreciation of the peso. In late December 1994, Zedillo unveiled plans to limit wage growth, cut government spending, and increase the participation of private capital in the Mexican economy. President Clinton developed an exit program in early 1995; however, GDP fell precipitously by 6.2% during the year amid a 52% rise in prices. Zedillo's tough policies improved the economy in late 1996, setting the stage for growth in 1997 (4.8% growth) and 1998 (4.5%).
The period of recovery of the Mexican economy did not last long, and soon oil prices began to fall. Although oil and oil products accounted for only 12% of export earnings in 1998, they fed 1/3 of the federal budget. The shortfall in revenue forced the Minister of Finance to cut government spending three times during the year and cut the 1999 budget substantially.
A more optimistic NAFTA encouraged the expansion of trade across the continent. Mexico's bilateral trade with its partners grew by 67% between 1993 ($91 billion) and 1996 ($152 billion), although the balance of payments deficit began to widen in the late 1990s. Despite criticism from angry nationalists, Zedillo continued to pursue privatization, focusing on telecommunications facilities, railroads, ports, power plants and petrochemical plants.
national income. The gross domestic product (GDP) of Mexico in 1997 - the total output of marketable products and services rendered - amounted to 402.5 billion dollars, or 4184 dollars per capita. In 1997, industry accounted for 28.3% of GDP, services and trade - 65.3%, agriculture and fisheries - 6.1%. The increase in the output of the Mexican economy annually in 1995 was 6.2%, in 1996 - 5.1%, in 1997 - 7%, in 1998 - 5.3%.
Economical geography. Industry is concentrated mainly in an area with a radius of 80 kilometers from Mexico City and in the cities of Monterrey and Guadalajara. The industrial corridor runs along much of Mexico's northern border. Oil production is concentrated on the east coast from Tampico to Villa Hermosa, offshore drilling rigs in the Gulf of Campeche. Most cattle farms are located in the northern and central states, and most of the other minerals are concentrated in them. The unprofitable production of corn, legumes, pumpkins, eggplants and chilli peppers is located throughout the country, except in those areas where climate and natural vegetation prevent this (the northern regions of the deserts and forests in Tabasco, Yucatan and Chiapas) or territory (the rocky mountain valleys of the Western Sierra -Madre). Buffalo-drawn hoes and plows are still widely used by marginal farms, who can rarely afford the more advanced farming techniques used by large landowners. Commercial agriculture is most developed and mechanized in areas north of the Valley of Mexico and on the northwestern slopes and valleys of the Western Sierra Madre, especially in the states of Sinaloa and Sonora, where fruits and vegetables are grown, mainly for export, growing in conditions temperate climate zone, in particular tomatoes and melons. Commercial tropical crops are grown on the central coast and in the south: sugar cane in the plains, coffee in the highlands, Mexican hemp in the Yucatan, and bananas, mangoes, guava, papayas and pineapples in a number of other areas.
Employment. In 1998, almost 38 million people in Mexico were of working age, of which almost 5% were unemployed and another 35% worked part-time. The problem of finding a job stimulates a huge migration of the population to the city of Mexico City, the capitals of the states and to the USA. An estimated 14 million people migrated in search of work in the 1990s. There are practically no foreign workers in Mexico, with the exception of the state of Chiapas, where seasonal workers from Guatemala work in agriculture. In the 1970s and 1980s, refugees from civil wars in Central America sought permanent employment in Chiapas and other parts of Mexico.
In the late 1990s, ca. 22% of Mexico's working-age population was employed in agriculture, 19% in industry, 13% in trade, 7% in construction, and the rest in the service sector.
Organization and planning of production. Since the 1910 revolution, and especially since the 1930s, the government has pursued a policy of "Mexicanization" in order to modernize the economy in line with national interests. Many large and foreign-owned estates were divided into parts and distributed among the landless peasants, hundreds of industrial enterprises were also nationalized.
In order to implement its mexicanization policy, the government passed a series of laws and regulations that determined the type of ownership allowed in various industries. The production of electricity, the operation of railways, radio communications and telegraph communications, as well as the oil and petrochemical industries became state property. Broadcasting, road transport and the lumber industry were to be wholly owned by the Mexicans. Foreign investors were allowed to have only a minor stake in the ownership of other industries, including iron and steel, fisheries, mining (excluding oil), and the food industry. Other economic activities, especially those associated with imported components for re-export, could have an unlimited share of foreign ownership.
By the 1980s, the government owned or controlled 2/3 of national production; had the power, depending on the situation, to cancel or increase restrictions on foreign capital; skillfully used various financial incentives or barriers, import licenses, protectionist tariffs, and price controls on essentials (basic food, gasoline, telephone, water, electricity).
At the suggestion of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the government decided to sell off state-owned companies and remove restrictions on foreign capital. In December 1993, the Mexican Congress passed a new foreign investment law. This law provided more opportunities (not limited by the constitution) for foreign ownership, guaranteed a favorable climate for most foreign investors, eliminated the provision of regulations for the implementation of their projects, and made it easier to obtain foreign investment permits. In early 1997, foreign direct investment in Mexico's industry was dominated by US firms with 56.2% of its $17.4 billion total in 1994-1996.
Agriculture. In 1997, agriculture employed 22% of workers and contributed 6.1% of GDP, while in 1950 it employed 58% of workers and contributed 22.5% of GDP. Most production is concentrated on private commercial farms or on ejidos, land cultivated under the traditional Mexican system of land tenure, under which the land is collectively owned by a peasant community. Ejidos were restored after the revolution of 1910 and developed during the reign of Cardenas (1934-1940). Although peasants had the right to use public land, they could not own it or legally sell it. Such restrictions prevented those who occupied the land from using it as collateral against a bank loan or entering into joint ventures with legal entities. Although ok. 2/3 of the rural population lived on these public lands (they accounted for almost half of all cultivated land), private peasant farms produced 70% of marketable food and most of the export crops. This situation led to criticism of echidos as an obstacle to the development of agriculture. In early 1992, the government launched a reform that allowed peasants to enter into contracts under which they could rent, share land or sell their farms. Some members of the peasant communities even entered into joint venture agreements with multinational corporations, to which they provided land and labor in exchange for capital and technical assistance. Few of these businesses prospered, and a prolonged drought was followed by severe tropical storms that damaged the 1998 crop.
The most important agricultural crops are wheat, rice, barley, maize and sorghum. Other important export crops include fruits and vegetables, especially tomatoes, oranges, mangoes and bananas. Coffee in 1990 contributed 1.4% of export earnings.
Cattle breeding in Mexico is concentrated in the north-central region, which exports a large number of cattle to the United States. Beef and dairy products for the urban areas of Mexico mainly came from the coastal region of the Gulf of Mexico, where zebu cattle are raised. Horses, mules, donkeys, sheep, goats and pigs are also of great importance in the animal husbandry of the country. The volume of livestock output corresponds to the country's domestic needs for beef, pork, fresh milk, poultry and eggs, but milk powder is imported.
Fishing. Commercial fishing is well developed along the shores of the Gulf of California and Mexico. Cooperatives predominate in this sector of the economy. In 1992, the total fish catch was 1.6 million tons. Most of the catch is consumed directly by the inhabitants of Mexico; the rest is processed and/or exported.
Forestry. Mexico's forests have been cleared for fuel or for farming. Since the 1940s, a reforestation program has been implemented through the creation of national forest parks. In 1990 roundwood production was 22.2 million cubic meters. 70% of wood was used as fuel. In terms of production and value, pine exceeded almost 10 times all other tree species, such as mahogany, rosewood, logwood, light mahogany, kapok and fustik, mainly in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and the Yucatán Peninsula. Other forest industry products include sapodilla chicles, bitumen, rosin and charcoal.
Minerals and mining industry. The mines and oil fields of Mexico, once owned mostly by US corporations, are now mostly nationalized. Mexico is one of the world's major producers of silver (2,536 tons in 1996) and fluorspar (480,000 tons in 1997), as well as a major supplier of antimony, cadmium, manganese, mercury, and zinc. In 1997, 170 thousand tons of lead, 360 thousand tons of copper and 2.3 million tons of sulfur were produced, as well as a large amount of gold, molybdenum, tungsten, tin, bismuth, uranium, barite and high-quality coking coal.
There are three main mining regions. In the north, Baja California and the states of Sonora, Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, Durango and Zacatecas are rich in silver, copper, coal, gold, iron ore, zinc, lead, molybdenum, barite, fluorspar, uranium and tungsten. On the Gulf Coast, the states of Veracruz, Tabasco and Campeche produce sulfur, aluminum and manganese. Significant amounts of the country's gold, manganese, fluorspar, lead, and zinc are mined in the west-central states of Jalisco, Guerrero, Aguascalientes, Guanajuato, Hidalgo, and San Luis Potosí.
Oil . Mexico is the world's fourth largest producer of crude oil and the fifth largest proven hydrocarbon reserves of 60.16 billion barrels of oil.
When in the early 20th century commercial oil production began, it began to play an important role in the economy of Mexico and its foreign economic relations. After the expropriation of foreign oil companies in 1938, the state company Petroleos Mehicanos (Pemex) took advantage of a monopoly on the development, production, processing, transportation, and sale of oil and natural gas. The original oil fields were located mainly between Veracruz and Tampico, but in the 1970s and 1980s new oil fields were discovered in Tabasco, in the sea off the coast of Campeche and in Chiapas. Income from the sale of oil for export in 1982 was 3/4 of Mexico's foreign exchange earnings, in 1998 - only 19%.
Mexico refused in 1991-1992 to open its oil sector to foreign companies during the NAFTA negotiations. Nevertheless, Pemex's need for $22 billion to $25 billion in investments in the mid-1990s led it to enter into contracts with private oil drilling companies, oil refinery joint ventures, and an offer to sell a majority stake in petrochemicals to a state-owned company. This monopoly company reduced its workforce from 215,000 in 1988 to 133,000. in 1998.
Energy. In 1995, the installed capacity of power plants in Mexico was 31,600 MW, of which 54% were thermal power plants operating on oil or gas fuels, 6.64% - on both types of fuel, 6% - on coal, 28.8% - hydroelectric power plants, 2.38% - geothermal power plants, 2.1% - at nuclear power plants.
Transport and communication. The lack of convenient transport links, which was hampered by the peculiarities of the country's relief, hindered its economic development for a long time. New types of transportation systems and communications first linked the city of Mexico City with several of the most important economic centers, such as the US border and the port of Veracruz. Mexico City is still the hub of all transport networks and communication systems that cover the most remote areas of the country.
The length of the Mexican railway network in 1996 was 26,623 km. The only national company that operates railways is Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México (National Railways of Mexico). In 1992, the company carried 15 million passengers and almost 50 million tons of cargo.
The first phase of the subway in Mexico City was opened in 1969. In 1991, the length of its tracks was 158 km, and it was planned to further expand the network of its lines. The Sistema de Transporte Collectivo (Public Transport System) is a state-owned company.
The length of Mexico's highways is 247,440 km, of which 48.5 thousand km are paved and are considered the main highways. The highway running from the city of Ciudad Juarez (on the border with the United States) to the city of Ciudad Cuautemoc (on the border with Guatemala) is the main highway of the country. Other major highways run from Mexico City to Tijuana, Acapulco, Veracruz and Merida.
There are two main airlines in Mexico, Aeromexico and Mexicona, which have an extensive network of airlines within the country. They operate flights to the USA, other countries of Latin America and to some airports in Europe. 32 international and 30 domestic airports are also served by numerous other international and local airlines.
Sea transportation is traditionally concentrated in the ports of Veracruz and Acapulco. In addition, the country has large ports in Tampico, Coatzacoalcos, Progreso, Salina Cruz, Mazatlán, Manzanillo, Guaymas, Ensenada, La Paz and Santa Rosalia. In 1992, the Mexican merchant fleet consisted of 649 ships with a total carrying capacity of 1.2 million tons.
Almost all remote villages have a telephone, telegraph, radio and television. During the reign of Salinas, the Telephonos de Mexico company was privatized, which provides almost 98% of the national telephone connection. In 1996, a country with a population of 96.2 million was served by only 8,826,000 telephones.
Tourism. In 1995 Mexico was visited by approx. 20.1 million tourists, mostly from the USA. The government did its best to attract tourists to the country, whose income from their stay was the main source of foreign currency.
Manufacturing industry. A significant part of Mexican industry is based on the processing of natural resources, especially oil, and on the primary processing of agricultural products. Mexico also produces a wide range of light industrial and durable goods, such as automobiles, and has a well-developed glass industry. The manufacturing industry is concentrated in the city of Mexico City and its surrounding industrial zone, while the main iron and steel industry is located in the northern cities of Monterrey and Monclova and on the west coast. Mexico's smelters meet domestic demand for steel. In 1991, 5.9 million tons of steel were smelted. The most important manufacturing products were automobiles, foodstuffs, iron and steel, chemicals, beverages, and electrical goods.
The cities along Mexico's northern border have a large number of export-only businesses owned by foreign, mostly American, industrial companies that are allowed to import duty-free raw materials or parts for later re-export. These enterprises in Mexico were called "maquiladoras". The main products are textiles, toys, electrical goods and electronics. US industrialists use Mexico as an "investment export platform" mainly because of the cheap, relatively skilled and large labor force. The Mexican government encourages them, as they create a large number of jobs. The maquiladoras were hardly affected by the economic crisis of 1995-1996, and their production growth rates significantly exceeded the growth rates of the country's economy as a whole. The opportunity for jobs in the maquiladoras caused a large influx of labor, mostly young women, to the northern border towns.
National currency and banking. Mexico's currency is the peso, issued by the Central Bank of Mexico, which is modeled after the US Federal Reserve System and has extensive powers to control the money supply. Another leading financial institution is the Financial National Company, which manages the use of foreign capital in projects related to infrastructure development.
Foreign trade and payments. Until the 1980s, Mexico acted as an exporter of cheap raw materials and an importer of expensive manufactured goods. Although Mexico still imports many industrial goods, complex machinery and technologies necessary for the development of domestic industry, the country has dramatically increased the export of its manufactured goods, the share of which increased from 38% in 1985 to 85.8% in 1997. Thus, in 1997, spending on imports were $109,807 million, while export earnings were only $110,431 million. By September 1998, a deficit of $772.8 million replaced the previous profit (surplus).
Public finances. Mexico, which used to run budget deficits, joined Switzerland and Japan in the early 1990s to become one of the top three countries with budget surpluses. This notable achievement helped the country become a member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which includes the developed countries of the world. During the first three months of 1994, the public sector surplus was $1.7 billion. Although government spending increased by 14.5%, budget revenues also increased, mainly due to improved tax collection and revenue from non-oil sectors of the economy. Despite the devaluation of the peso in 1995, Zedillo managed to maintain control over the growth of the money supply. As a result, the federal budget deficit was kept in 1996-1998 at the level of 1.25% of GDP.
CULTURE
Mexican culture was formed from a mixture of Spanish and Indian traditions. In the 20th century she was influenced by the culture of European countries and the United States.
In the pre-Columbian period, highly developed civilizations flourished in Mexico, creating magnificent examples of art and architecture and forming stable state formations.
The Revolution of 1910–1917 was a turning point in the social and cultural development of Mexico. The powerful impulse of the awakened Indian culture found a response in all spheres of national life, including art - especially in music, painting, arts and crafts, literature and architecture.
Architecture and fine arts. During the colonial period, Mexican architecture reached the highest degree of development. Under the guidance of Spanish architects, mostly clerics, the Indians erected many religious and secular buildings in the Renaissance and Baroque styles that prevailed in Spain at that time. Tiled decor gave the domes and facades a festive look. The walls of the temples were decorated with large-scale frescoes.
During the 19th century there were no significant changes in the development of Mexican art. At the World Exhibition in Paris in 1889, Mexico built its pavilion in the Moorish style, characteristic of Spain in the 14th century. In 1909, on the eve of the fall of the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz, the artist Diego Rivera (1886–1957) and the art theorist Dr. Atl (pseudonym Gerardo Murillo, 1875–1964) returned to Mexico. By this time, two major figures emerged in the national fine arts: the engraver José Guadalupe Posada (1851–1913) and the painter Francisco Goitia (1884–1960).
In the early 1920s, the Minister of Education, José Vasconcelos (1881–1958), commissioned a number of young artists to paint large-scale paintings on the walls of some public buildings. These artists, called muralists (from Spanish mura - mural) - Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco (1883-1949), David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896-1974), Rufino Tamayo (1899-1991), Jesús Guerrero Galván (1910- 1973), Miguel Covarrubias (1904-1957) - tried to combine modern plastic art with the themes and aesthetics of pre-Columbian Mexican cultures. The frescoes and mosaics of the muralists, colossal in size, are not so much paintings on the walls as wall-pictures that create a truly architectural space. Mexican muralism had a huge impact on the art of all of Latin America, especially the Andean countries. Wall paintings are still the most prestigious genre of Mexican painting. Of contemporary artists, Luis Guevas (b. 1933) has achieved the greatest fame.
A characteristic feature of modern Mexican architecture is the synthesis of the latest trends with the traditions of Indian architecture and the harmonious combination of steel, concrete, glass with wall paintings and mosaic panels. A striking example of this architecture is the University Campus, opened in 1954, which houses the Mexican National Autonomous University. The 1968 Olympic Games held in Mexico City spurred the construction of a number of magnificent modern buildings and the restoration of masterpieces of colonial architecture.
Literature. From the pre-Columbian literature of Mexico, individual examples of epic, lyric and hymn poetry have survived to this day, mostly in translations into Spanish. Mexican literature proper begins to take shape in the early colonial period in the chronicles of the conquista. Prominent creators of this genre were the conquistadors Hernán Cortes (1485–1547) and Bernal Diaz del Castillo (c. 1492–1582), the monks Bernardino de Sahagún (1550–1590), Toribio Motolinia (1495–1569) and Juan de Torquemada. Mexican literature of the 17th century, as well as architecture, was dominated by the Baroque style, with its characteristic artificiality, excessive imagery, and metaphor. Three figures stand out in the colonial period: the polymath Carlos Siguenza y Gongora (1645–1700), the great poetess Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648–1695), who earned the honorary title of “Tenth Muse,” and Juan Ruiz de Alarcón (1580 –1639), who went to Spain, where he became famous as one of the greatest playwrights of the Golden Age of Spanish literature.
In the 19th century Enlightenment liberal ideas, which formed the basis of the anti-colonial movement in Spanish America, came to the fore in national literature. These ideas permeate the work of José Joaquín Fernández de Lisardi (1776–1827), author of a number of nonfiction works and the first Spanish American novel. Periquillo Sarniento (Periquillo Sarniento, 1816). Mexican literature of the 19th century developed mainly in line with romanticism and costumbrism (moral descriptive genre); in the last third of the century, under the influence of positivism, a realistic trend is formed. In the 1880s, in Mexico, as in many other countries of the continent, the course of Spanish American modernism was born. The modernists updated worn out romantic themes, professed the cult of beauty and strove for elegance and refinement of form. The greatest representatives of this trend in Mexican literature were the poets Salvador Diaz Miron (1853-1928), Manuel Gutierrez Najera (1859-1895) and Amado Nervo (1870-1928).
The revolution of 1910-1917 gave a powerful impetus to the development of Mexican literature and turned the national prose on the path of realism. The themes of social oppression and the heroes of the peons (peasants), representatives of the masses, came to the fore in it. In the 1930s, a current developed in Mexican prose, known as the "novel of the Mexican revolution". The founder of this trend was Mariano Azuela (1873–1952); his romance Those below(Los de abajo), created in 1916, became widely known in 1927. It was followed by Eagle and snake(El aguila y la serpiente, 1928) Martin Luis Guzman (1887–1976), military camp(El Campamento, 1931) Gregorio López y Fuentes (1897–1966), My horse, my dog, my gun(Mi caballo, mi perro, mi rifle, 1936) José Ruben Romero (1880–1952), Before the downpour(Al filo del agua, 1947) Agustín Yañez (1904–1980) and many others. In the 1950s, Juan José Arreola (1918–2001), author of philosophical and humorous miniatures, and Juan Rulfo (1918–1986), one of the pioneers of the “new Latin American novel,” entered the literary scene. His collection of short stories Plain in flames(La llana en llamas, 1953) and the story Pedro Paramo(Pedro Paramo, 1955) are created in line with Latin American mythology and magical realism.
In modern Mexican prose, two world-famous writers who experiment with the form of the novel stand out. One of them is the winner of a number of prestigious literary awards Carlos Fuentes (b. 1928), author of famous novels Death of Artemio Cruz(La muerte de Artemio Cruz, 1962), skin change(cambio de piel, 1967), Terra Nostra(Terra Nostra, 1975), Christopher the Unborn (Cristobal Nonato, 1987) and many others, as well as stories, novels, essays, journalistic works. The other is Fernando del Paso (b. 1935), who created sensational novels Jose Trigo(Jose Trigo, 1966), Palinur Mexican (Palinuro de Mexico, 1975) and News from the empire(Noticias del imperio, 1987).
A radical renewal of the artistic language of Mexican poetry began with the poets of the Contemporaneos group (1928–1931), which included Jaime Torres Bodet (1902–1974), Carlos Pelliser (1899–1977), Jose Gorostisa (1901–1973), Salvador Novo (1904– 1974), Javier Villaurrutia (1904–1950) and others. Their initiatives were taken up and creatively developed by Ephraim Huerta (b. 1914) and Octavio Paz, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature for 1990.
An important role in the literary process of Mexico in the 20th century. essayism played with its central theme of the search for a Latin American and Mexican essence. Prominent works in this genre were created by the cultural philosophers José Vasconcelos (1881–1959), Alfonso Reyes (1889–1959), Antonio Caso (1883–1946), Samuel Ramos (1897–1959), Octavio Paz (1914–1998) and Leopoldo Seaa ( 1912–2004).
Cinematography and drama theatre. Mexico occupies a leading position in Latin American cinema. In the early 1980s, about a hundred feature-length films were produced annually in the country, which were then distributed throughout the Spanish-speaking world. International awards in the field of cinema were received by directors Emilio Fernandez, nicknamed "Indian" and the Rodriguez brothers, cameraman Gabriel Figueroa, and Spanish director Luis Bunuel, who came to Mexico in 1947 and created several films here that gained worldwide fame. Mexican Mario Moreno, one of the most popular Latin American actors, resembles Charlie Chaplin in his pantomime and acting style.
In Mexican villages and provincial towns, there is still a folk theater called "carpa" (lit. "tent", canvas canopy). This is a type of traveling tent, where troupes of traveling comedians perform vaudeville. In 1956, the National Institute of Fine Arts created the Department of the People's Theater, which trained actors and directors for the "carp". Of the professional Mexican theaters, the largest are the metropolitan theaters Jimenez Rueda, Hidalgo, Jola, Reforma, Insurgentes, the Theater for Children and the puppet Guignol.
Rodolfo Usigli (1905–1979), who created experimental theater in the late 1920s, became the founder of modern Mexican drama. In the 1940s and 1960s, he wrote a number of satirical, historical and psychological dramas that were staged with great success in Latin America. The playwrights Javier Villaurrutia, Celestino Gorostisa (1904-1967), Mauricio Magdaleno (1906-1986), Salvador Novo and modern playwrights Emilio Carballido, Luis Basurto, Elena Garro, Wilberto Canton and Carlos Solorsano developed new principles of theatrical aesthetics in their works.
Music. Mexican Indians had a highly developed musical culture. In his book Indian monarchy (Monarquia Indiana) Spanish chronicler and missionary Juan de Torquemada gives a vivid description of the poignant and rhythmic music of the Aztecs. The vocal and instrumental music of the Aztecs was built on pentatonic scales (approximately corresponding to the black keys of the piano) and did not know semitones. Aztec musical instruments included various types of drums, rattles made from dried fruits, scrapers, bells, flutes and sea shells with holes drilled in them, making sounds like a trombone. The Indians did not know stringed instruments. The Spaniards taught the Indians the diatonic scale, counterpoint, and playing the strings.
The Creole folk music of Mexico is rich and varied. Of the genres of Mexican song folklore, the most famous was the corrido, a kind of folk ballad. This song genre developed on the basis of the Spanish romance of the 15th and 16th centuries, but acquired a deeply original theme and style. It is built from quatrains with exact rhyme (unlike the assonant rhymes of the Spanish romance), performed to the accompaniment of a guitar with the repetition of the melodic phrases of each verse. The vast corrido of the Mexican Revolution, which took shape in the 1910s and 1920s, became a classic of the genre.
Each Mexican province has its own characteristic song and choreographic genres. These are, for example, the lively Sandunga from Tehuantepec, the lively and cheerful Chiapanecas of the state of Chiapas, the Spanish in spirit la llorona of Oaxaca, the harana of Yucatan, the huapango and bamba of the state of Veracruz, the Michoacan dance of the viejitos (lit. “old men”), during which the boys dress up as old men, Canacuas Urupana, the dream of Jalisco, a folklore performance called "Moors and Christians" that takes place in the Valley of Mexico. In addition, ubiquitous in various versions are alabados (songs of praise) and manyanitas (morning serenades), Christmas posadas and songs born of the revolution, such as the famous Cucaracha, Adelita And Valentine; as well as the song and dance genre jarabe, one of the variants of which, jarabe tapatio, which arose in the state of Jalisco, became the national emblem of Mexico. The most picturesque moment of this dance is the dance of a woman on the fields of a man's sombrero.
In Mexico, original folk instruments are popular. Mariachi instrumental ensembles have become widespread throughout the country, especially in the central zone. The ensemble is usually based on two violins, a six-string guitar, a small five-string lute, a large five-string guitar (the so-called guitarron), to which a harp, trumpet and clarinet are sometimes added. In southern Mexico, the wooden xylophone marimba is popular.
In some areas, Indian songs, dances and ritual actions are preserved. Of the latter, the most interesting is an unusual folklore performance called "volador" (lit. "flyer"): four men, tied with ropes by the feet to the top of a 30-meter pole, begin to spin in the air, gradually descending in a spiral to the ground. All this happens to the roar of drums and the piercing sounds of the chirimiya flute. The ceremonies of the Yaqui Indians are also very picturesque - the “deer dance” and “las paskolas”.
A magnificent folklore ballet, created in the early 1960s, played a huge role in the dissemination and propaganda of Mexican folklore abroad. This group combines skillfully stylized forms of folk dance with authentic folk music.
Professional musical culture of Mexico in the 20th century. spawned a number of outstanding composers. In the 1920s, Carlos Chávez (1899–1978) set out to renew Mexican music and give it a national character, and began to use Indian themes, melodies and musical instruments in his compositions. Chavez was the founder and chief conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra (created in 1928), director of the conservatory in Mexico City (1928-1934); he toured extensively abroad and received international recognition. Chávez's beginnings were continued by the famous composers Manuel Maria Ponce (1882–1948) and Silvestre Revueltas (1899–1940). A great contribution to the development of Mexican musical culture was made by Blas Galindo Dimas (1910–1993), director of the conservatory in 1947–1961, folklorist Vicente Toribio Mendoza (1894–1964), musicologist Otto Mayer-Serra (1904–1968), composers Candelario Huizar (1883 –1970), Miguel Bernal Jimenez (1910–1956), José Pablo Moncayo (1912–1958), José Rolon (1883–1945), Rodolfo Alater, Luis Sandi and others.
Education. Secular education has been introduced in Mexico, which is not an obstacle to the activities of private religious schools. Despite legally enshrined free compulsory primary education, 9% of adolescents from 6 to 17 years old are unable to attend school due to financial difficulties. As of 1995, the National Autonomous University of Mexico (founded in 1553) had 330,000 students. In addition to it, there are fifty more universities operating in the country. One of the best is the Institute of Technology in Monterrey.
The Mexican government pursues a policy of involving the Indians in the sphere of modern civilization. To this end, cultural missions are being created in Indian settlements, where several specialists of various profiles work - for example, a nurse, a teacher, a carpenter, an agronomist, a social worker. They visit nearby areas, study Indian customs and then pass on their knowledge to the Indians, but in such a way as not to undermine the foundations of their original culture. This program proved to be so effective that, under the auspices of UNESCO, a Center for Fundamental Teacher Training for other Latin American countries with a high percentage of Amerindian population was established on Lake Patzcuaro.
Museums and libraries. There are numerous museums in the capital, among them - the National Museum of Anthropology, the National Museum of History in Chapultepec Castle, the Museum of Painting and Sculpture "San Carlos", the Museum of Natural History and the National Museum, located in the National Palace on Zocalo Square in the city center.
Each university has a rich library. The Mexican National Library, founded in 1833, has over 1 million volumes and has a valuable collection of rare books and documents.
Sport. The most popular sports are baseball, football, horse racing, bullfighting, jai alai (the Basque national ball game similar to handball), tennis, basketball, volleyball, golf and swimming. Mexico City has two bullrings, one of which is the largest in the world. The National Stadium has a capacity of 80,000 spectators, the new Olympic Stadium on the University Campus - 100,000 spectators. The huge relief mural by Diego Rivera on the outer wall of the Olympic Stadium recreates the history of sports in Mexico.
Television and radio broadcasting. Mexico was the first Latin American country to start broadcasting. Many TV programs are broadcast from the US, but most are Mexican-made. Mexican television programs are distributed throughout Latin America and partly in the United States.
Press and book publishing. The most popular newspapers are Excelsior, an independent capital daily of a conservative direction, Universal, Prensa, Esto (the most widely read newspaper with a daily circulation of more than 400 thousand copies), Uno mas uno, a small-circulation but prestigious publication of the left opposition) and "Novedades" (circulation 190 thousand) famous for its weekly review of culture. The leading newspapers of the provincial centers are El Norte in Monterrey, Sol de Tampico and Occidental in Guadalajara. The largest provincial newspapers are run by the government.
Among numerous Mexican publishing houses, the Fondo de kultura ekonomika, created in 1934 by a group of young intellectuals, stands out. The publishing house publishes literature of various profiles. In the early 1990s, approx. 2500 titles. Mexican books are popular throughout the Spanish speaking world.
STORY
Excavations in Tepespan, made in 1947, and in other places indicate that traces of human presence in Mexico date back at least to the 20th millennium BC. In the middle of the 1st millennium BC. in Central and Southern Mexico, sedentary cultures began to take shape, the economic basis of which was the cultivation of maize, beans and pumpkins.
early civilizations. The ancient Mexican Olmec culture flourished in the 12th–5th centuries. BC, with the centers of La Vente, Tres Zapotes and Cerro de las Mesas in the current states of Veracruz, Tabasco and Guerrero. The Olmec culture had a significant influence on the formation of the later classical civilizations of Mexico, which flourished in the 4th-9th centuries. AD: on the cultures of Teotihuacan in the central Anahuac valley; the Zapotecs in Oaxaca and Tehuantepec, centered on Monte Albán; Totonacs in the territory of the modern state of Veracruz with a center in El Tajin and the highly developed Maya civilization that developed in southern Mexico and Guatemala. Maya achievements include a complex religious and mythological system, hieroglyphic writing, majestic architecture, exquisite sculpture and sophisticated arts and crafts, extensive knowledge of mathematics and astronomy, and an accurate calendar.
These classical civilizations collapsed at about the same time. The exception is the Yucatan Maya, whose culture lasted until the Spanish conquest. In the 8th c. AD conquerors from the north, the Toltecs, invaded Central Mexico. In the 9th-10th centuries. they created a vast state with the capital Tollan, or Tolyan (modern Tula), and conquered the Mayan country. On the territory of the Yucatan, a Maya-Toltec state developed, whose capital in the 11th century. became Chichen Itza, and after its destruction in the 12th century. - Mayapan. The Zapotecs were driven south by the Mixtecs, who also came from the north.
Around the 12th century the state of the Toltecs fell under the blows of the northern nomadic peoples of the Nahua. Among them were tenochki, or mexica (self-name of the Aztecs), which are approx. In 1325, they founded their capital, Tenochtitlan, on the islands of Lake Texcoco on the site of present-day Mexico City. Through alliances and conquests, they significantly expanded their possessions, although in fact the so-called Aztec empire was an association of city-states with villages and tribes freely attached to them, subject to tribute. By the time the Spaniards arrived in Mexico, the possessions of the Aztec emperor Montezuma (Moctezuma) II extended south to Oaxaca, west to Michoacán, and east to the Gulf of Mexico. Only the inhabitants of the neighboring cities of Tlaxcala and Texcoco and the Tarascans in the west managed to maintain their independence. The Aztecs made a cult of war and practiced mass human sacrifice. Aztec culture borrowed a lot from the cultures of the conquered peoples. The further development of the Aztec civilization was interrupted by the Spanish conquistadors.
Spanish conquest. Rumors about the riches of Mexico attracted the attention of the Spanish conquistadors. The first recorded contact of Europeans with the peoples of Mesoamerica occurred in 1511, when a Spanish ship was shipwrecked off the Yucatan Peninsula, en route from Panama to the island of Hispaniola (modern Haiti). One of the surviving members of the team, Jeronimo de Aguilar, lived for a long time with the Maya, learned their language and eight years later became an interpreter on the expedition of Hernán Cortes. Purposeful exploration and conquest of Mexico began in 1517 under the leadership of the governor of Cuba, Diego Velázquez. He sent three expeditions to the shores of the Gulf of Mexico: the first in 1517 was led by Francisco Hernandez de Cordova, the second (1518) by Juan de Grijalva, and the third (1519) by Hernan Cortes.
At the last moment, the governor ordered Cortés to be replaced as commander, but on February 10, 1519, he arbitrarily sailed to Mexico on 11 ships containing 550 people and 16 horses. In the Yucatan, Cortes took with him Aguilar, and in the country of the Tabaskans, the Indian slave girl Malinche (later christened Marina), who served as his translator. On the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, he founded the settlement of Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz (lit. Rich City of the True Cross), which became the springboard for the conquest of the country. Having left submission to the governor of Cuba, Cortez declared himself captain-general. In order to stop desertion, he burned his ships.
Cortes skillfully used the contradictions that were tearing apart the Aztec state, attracted the Tlaxcalans to his side and, with their help, took Tenochtitlan and conquered the empire in two years. Having established himself in the Valley of Mexico, he sent expeditions to the west of Mexico and into Central America. In 1522, the Spanish emperor Charles V highly appreciated the merits of Cortés: he approved him as captain-general and governor of the conquered lands, granted him the title of Marquis del Valle de Oaxaca, and assigned land of 64,750 square meters to his personal possession. km. with 100,000 Indians living on them.
colonial period. In 1528, the Spanish crown limited the power of Cortes by sending an audience to Mexico, an administrative-judicial collegium reporting directly to the king. In 1535 Mexico became part of the newly created Viceroyalty of New Spain. Antonio de Mendoza became the first viceroy, the personal representative of the Spanish monarch in New Spain; in 1564 he was replaced at the post by Luis de Velasco. For three centuries, from 1521 to 1821, Mexico remained a colonial possession of Spain. Despite the active interaction of local and European traditions, culturally, Mexican society was a rather mixed picture. The colonial economy was based on the exploitation of the Indians, who were forced to work in the lands and mines taken from them. The Spaniards introduced new agricultural technologies and new agricultural crops into traditional Indian agriculture, including citrus fruits, wheat, sugar cane and olives, taught the Indians how to livestock, began the systematic development of the earth's interior and created new mining centers - Guanajuato, Zacatecas, Pachuca, Taxco, etc.
The most important instrument of political and cultural influence on the Indians was the Roman Catholic Church. Its pioneering missionaries actually expanded the sphere of Spanish influence.
During the 18th century The Bourbons who ruled Spain, influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment, carried out a series of reforms in the colonies aimed at centralizing power and liberalizing the economy. Outstanding administrators emerged in Mexico, including the prominent viceroys Antonio Maria Bucareli (1771–1779) and Count Revillagigedo (1789–1794).
War for independence. The anti-colonial war in Mexico, which unfolded after the occupation of Spain by Napoleon's troops, developed under the influence of the French Revolution and the American War of Independence. At the same time, the liberation movement did not originate among the metropolitan Creoles (whites of American origin), but in the very heart of the mining region and in the initial stages had the character of almost a racial war. The uprising, which began in the village of Dolores on September 16, 1810, was led by the priest Miguel Hidalgo (1753–1811). Obeying his call "Independence and death to the Spaniards!", which went down in history under the name "Cry of Dolores", the rebels, mostly Indians and mestizos, moved to the capital with the enthusiasm of the crusaders. Filled with good illusions and reckless, Padre Hidalgo turned out to be a bad military leader, and ten months later he was captured by the Spaniards, defrocked and shot. September 16 is celebrated in Mexico as Independence Day, and Hidalgo is revered as a national hero.
The banner of the liberation struggle was picked up by another parish priest, a republican by conviction, José Maria Morelos (1765–1815), who showed extraordinary abilities as a military leader and organizer. The Congress of Chilpancing, convened on his initiative (November 1813), adopted a declaration of Mexican independence. However, two years later Morelos suffered the fate of his predecessor Hidalgo. In the next five years, the independence movement in Mexico took on the character of a guerrilla war under the leadership of local leaders, such as Vicente Guerrero in Oaxaca or Guadalupe Victoria in the states of Puebla and Veracruz.
The success of the Spanish liberal revolution of 1820 convinced the conservative Mexican Creoles that they should no longer rely on the mother country. The Creole elite of Mexican society joined the independence movement, which ensured his victory. The Creole colonel Agustin de Iturbide (1783–1824), who once fought against Hidalgo, changed his political course, united his army with the forces of Guerrero, and together with him on February 24, 1821 in the city of Iguala (modern Iguala de la Independencia) put forward a program, called the Plan of Iguala. This plan declared "three guarantees": the independence of Mexico and the establishment of a constitutional monarchy, the preservation of the privileges of the Catholic Church and the equality of rights of Creoles and Spaniards. Without encountering serious resistance, Iturbide's army occupied Mexico City on September 27, and the next day the country's independence was proclaimed as part of the "Iguala Plan".
Independent Mexico in the first half of the 19th century Independence in itself did not yet ensure the consolidation of the nation and the formation of new political institutions. The caste-hierarchical structure of society remained unchanged, except for the fact that the Creoles replaced the Spaniards at the top of the social pyramid. The development of new social relations was hindered by the church with its privileges, the army command and large landowners who continued to expand their estates at the expense of Indian lands. The economy remained colonial in character: it was entirely focused on food production and the extraction of precious metals. Therefore, many events in Mexican history can be viewed as attempts to overcome the oppression of the colonial heritage, to consolidate the nation and gain complete independence.
Mexico came out of the liberation war greatly weakened - with an empty treasury, a destroyed economy, interrupted trade relations with Spain, and an exorbitantly swollen bureaucracy and army. Domestic political instability hindered the speedy resolution of these problems.
After the declaration of Mexico's independence, a provisional government was formed, but in May 1822 Iturbide staged a coup d'état and crowned himself emperor under the name of Augustine I. In early December 1822, the commander of the Veracruz garrison, Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana (1794–1876), rebelled and proclaimed a republic. He soon joined forces with the rebels of Guerrera and Victoria and in March 1823 forced Iturbide to abdicate and emigrate. The Constituent Congress, convened in November of the same year, consisted of warring camps of liberals and conservatives. As a result, a compromise constitution was adopted: at the insistence of the liberals, Mexico was declared a federal republic similar to the United States, while the conservatives managed to establish the status of the Catholic religion as the official and only permitted in the country and preserve various kinds of privileges for the clergy and the military, including their immunity from civil court.
M. Guadalupe Victoria (1824–1828) became the first legally elected president of Mexico. In 1827 the conservatives mutinied, but were defeated. In 1829, Liberal candidate Vicente Guerrero became president, abolishing slavery and repelling Spain's last attempt to restore its power in the former colony. Guerrero held on to power for less than a year and was overthrown by the conservatives in December 1829. The liberals responded to their opponents with another coup d'état and in 1833 transferred power to Santa Ana.
This typical Latin American caudillo (leader, dictator) was re-elected five times as president and ruled the country himself or through nominees for 22 years. He provided the country with internal political stability and economic recovery, accompanied by the expansion of the middle class. However, Santa Ana's foreign policy led the country to a national disaster. In the war with the United States, Mexico lost almost two-thirds of its territory - the current North American states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas and Utah.
The territorial claims of the United States to Mexico were outlined at the very beginning of the 19th century, they assumed a threatening character in the late 1820s, when North American settlers began to enter Texas in large numbers. The colonists experienced a severe shortage of labor on their plantations and sought to legalize the slave trade. To this end, in 1836 the Texans seceded from Mexico and proclaimed Texas an independent republic, which was recognized by the United States in 1837. In 1845, the North American Congress adopted a resolution on the inclusion of Texas into the United States as a slave state, and the following year, in response to the protests of Mexico, declared war on it. Santa Ana suffered one defeat after another, until in September 1847 he surrendered the capital and signed the act of surrender.
Under the peace treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) imposed by the victors, Mexico gave the United States its northern provinces. This defeat had disastrous consequences for the Mexican economy, not to mention the heavy moral legacy in relations between neighboring countries. But the territorial losses of Mexico did not end there. In 1853, Santa Ana, once again returned to power, sold the Mesilla Valley to the United States under the Gadsden Treaty. In 1854, the governor of the state of Guerrero, Juan Alvarez, and the head of customs, Ignacio Comonfort, rebelled and spoke in the town of Ayutla (modern Ayutla de los Libes) calling for the overthrow of the dictatorship of Santa Ana. The rebellion quickly turned into a revolution, and in 1855 the dictator was expelled from the country.
Reform period. The liberal reforms carried out by Benito Juarez (1806–1872) represented the second genuine revolution in Mexican history. In his work, Juarez relied on middle-class ideologues - lawyers, journalists, intellectuals, small entrepreneurs - who sought to create a democratic federal republic, do away with the privileges of the clergy and the military, ensure the economic prosperity of the state by redistributing the colossal wealth of the church, and, most importantly, create a class of small owners who can resist the dominance of large landowners and form the backbone of a democratic society. In fact, it was a bourgeois revolution carried out by mestizos.
As Minister of Justice, Juarez carried out the reforms of 1855 and 1856. Of these, the most important were the so-called. the "Law of Juarez", which abolished the judicial privileges of the military and the clergy, and the "Lerdo Law", which deprived the church of the right to own land and real estate, with the exception of places of worship and dwellings of monks. The law leased land estates of civil corporations, which, despite the resistance of Juarez, was used to seize Indian communal lands, especially later, during the era of P. Diaz's dictatorship.
The crowning achievement of the reforming activity of the liberals was the adoption of the progressive constitution of 1857, which sparked off a three-year bloody civil war. In this war, the United States supported Juarez, who became president of Mexico in 1858. England, France, and Spain patronized the oppositionists, who in the end were defeated. During the war, Juarez accepted the so-called. “reform laws” proclaiming the separation of church and state and the nationalization of church property, introducing civil marriage, etc. Subsequently, in the early 1870s, these laws were introduced into the constitution.
The main problem of the Juarez government was foreign debt. After the Mexican Congress in July 1861 announced a two-year suspension of payments on foreign debts, the representatives of England, France, and Spain signed a convention in London on armed intervention in Mexico. At the beginning of 1862, the combined forces of the three states occupied the most important Mexican ports in order to collect customs duties and compensate for the damage suffered. The United States at that time was absorbed in the civil war and did not have the opportunity to put into practice the Monroe Doctrine. Spain and England soon withdrew their troops from Mexico, Napoleon III moved an expeditionary force to the capital. The French were defeated at the Battle of Pueblo on May 5, 1862 (this date has become a national holiday in Mexico). However, the following year, the French strengthened their army, took the capital, and, with the support of Mexican conservatives, after a masquerade plebiscite, placed Maximilian Habsburg on the throne.
The emperor did not cancel the "reform laws", which alienated the conservatives from himself, and at the same time, despite all attempts, he could not reach a compromise with the opposition of the liberals, led by Juarez. In 1866, Napoleon III withdrew his troops from Mexico, having more ambitious plans in Europe and also fearing US intervention and growing Mexican resistance. The inevitable denouement was not long in coming: in 1867 Maximilian was defeated, captured, convicted and shot.
Dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz. After the death of Juarez in 1872, Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada became president. In 1876, General Porfirio Diaz (1830-1915) mutinied, defeated government troops, entered Mexico City and took power into his own hands. In 1877, by decision of Congress, he became president of Mexico. In 1881 he lost the presidency for one term, but in 1884 he returned to power, which he held for 27 years until his overthrow in 1911.
Diaz began by consolidating his power. To do this, he entered into an agreement with the largest factions of liberals and conservatives, weakened the effect of anti-clerical reforms, thereby attracting the clergy to his side, and subjugated the army elite and local caudillos. Díaz's favorite slogan "less politics, more governance" reduced the social life of the country to bare administration, i.e. implied an intolerant attitude towards any manifestation of dissent and the absolute power of the dictator, who presented himself as the guarantor of stability, justice and prosperity.
Diaz attached particular importance to the economy. Under the slogan "order and progress", he achieved the sustainable economic development of society and began to enjoy the support of a growing bureaucracy, large landowners and foreign capital. Profitable concessions encouraged foreign companies to invest in the exploitation of Mexican natural resources. Railways and telegraph lines were built, new banks and enterprises were created. Having become a solvent state, Mexico easily received foreign loans.
This policy was carried out under the influence of a special group in the administrative apparatus of the regime - the so-called. sientificos ("scholars") who believed that Mexico should be ruled by the Creole elite, and mestizos and Indians were given a subordinate role. One of the leaders of the group, José Limantour, served as finance minister and did a lot to develop the Mexican economy.
Mexican Revolution. Despite the successes in the development of the economy, the dictatorship of Diaz began to cause growing discontent among the widest sections of the population. The peasantry and representatives of the indigenous population, suffering from the arbitrariness of the landowners, the plunder of communal lands and heavy duties, raised uprisings under the slogan "Land and Freedom!". The intelligentsia and liberal circles were weary of the despotic regime of the ruling groups and the power of the church, and sought civil rights and freedoms. Mexico's dependence on foreign capital gave rise to demands for economic and foreign policy independence of the country.
An organized struggle against the Diaz dictatorship began at the turn of the 19th and 20th century. In 1901, opposition circles created the Mexican Liberal Party (MLP), which proclaimed its intention to restore constitutional freedoms. The leading role in the movement was quickly acquired by Enrique Flores Magon, who gradually evolved towards anarchist views. Forced to emigrate abroad, he organized the MLP Organizational Junta in the United States, which from 1906 led a series of uprisings and strikes in Mexico, seeking to overthrow the dictator and bring about social transformation.
Madero's uprising. Diaz raised a match to a barrel of gunpowder, giving an interview to the American journalist James Crillman, in which he stated that Mexico was ripe for democracy, that he was not going to stand as a candidate in the 1910 elections and was ready to allow opposition parties to participate in the elections. This interview stimulated the political activity of the opposition, led by Francisco Madero, the son of a wealthy landowner.
Madero formed an opposition party, the Anti-Relexionists (opponents of re-election). Madero used the experience of his predecessors and formed an opposition anti-relexionist party. In response to Creelman's interview, he published a book entitled Presidential Election 1910 in which he sharply attacked the militaristic dictatorial regime. The stormy activity of Madero brought him the glory of "the apostle of Mexican democracy."
However, Diaz broke his promises, again put forward his candidacy and was re-elected president. At the same time, he unleashed repressions against the opposition and imprisoned Madero. Madero managed to escape to the United States, where he prepared a revolutionary uprising that began on November 20, 1910. The uprising quickly turned into a revolution, and six months later, on May 21, 1911, the government signed an agreement in Ciudad Juarez on the resignation of Diaz and the creation of a provisional government. On the night of May 24-25, Diaz secretly left the capital and departed for Europe.
In November 1911, Madero was elected president. His short 15-month presidency constituted, one might say, the idealistic phase of the revolution. The well-meaning but politically inexperienced Madero attempted to give Mexico democracy. Along the way, he encountered many obstacles, such as congressional opposition; press attacks that abused freedom of speech; the increasing dependence of the government on the army; the intrigues of US Ambassador Henry Wilson, who supported Madero's opponents; military riots. Madero was attacked by both conservatives, who feared the growth of the revolution, and radical liberals, dissatisfied with the slow pace of change. Colossal forces and means were taken away by the fight against rebellions - for example, with the uprising of Pascual Orozco, the former commander-in-chief of the revolutionary army, or with the peasant partisan movement in the south of the country led by Emiliano Zapata (1883-1919). The final blow was the mutiny of the capital's garrison, which began on February 9, 1913. Street fighting, which lasted for ten days (the so-called "tragic decade"), caused great damage to the city and caused numerous casualties among the civilian population. The commander of government forces, Victoriano Huerta (1845–1916), a secret participant in the conspiracy, arrested Madero and his vice president, José Pino Suarez, on February 18. On February 22, they were killed by guards on their way to prison.
War years. The murder of Madero and the establishment of the military dictatorship of V. Huerta united the various factions of the revolutionaries. On March 26, 1913, the governor of the state of Cahuila, Venustiano Carranza (1859–1920), proclaimed the Guadalupe Plan, which called for the restoration of constitutional government. The fight against Huerta was led by General Alvaro Obregon (1880–1928) and peasant leaders E. Zapata and Francisco (Pancho) Villa (1878–1923). Together, they overthrew the Huerta regime in July 1914. To a certain extent, this was facilitated by the fact that US President Woodrow Wilson refused to recognize the Huerta government.
However, immediately after the victory, the revolutionaries began a struggle for power. In October 1914, in order to reconcile the warring parties, a revolutionary convention was convened in Aguascalientes with the participation of representatives of Villa and Zapata. Convinced that Carranza was concerned only with maintaining power, the convention appointed a number of executives to carry out social and economic reforms. The majority of the assembly demanded that Carranza resign his title of "leader of the revolution", but he refused to do so and moved his headquarters to Veracruz. By issuing a series of revolutionary decrees, Carranza won the workers and small landowners over to his side. Government troops under the command of Obregon in the spring of 1915 defeated the Northern Division of Villa in the battles of Celai and León and took control of the central part of the country. Zapata continued to resist in the south until he was killed in 1919. Villa waged a guerrilla war in the north until the overthrow of Carranza in 1920.
The Mexican Revolution and the United States. From the very beginning, the Mexican Revolution was of concern to the US ruling circles, who had to decide on neutrality, the recognition of new governments, the sale of weapons and the protection of the property of US citizens from possible damage. Frustrated with the Diaz regime, the US maintained a hands-off policy during Madero's rebellion and recognized him as president. However, the US ambassador to Mexico, Henry Lane Wilson, constantly intrigued against the new government, supported the rebels, and is morally responsible for failing to prevent Madero's assassination.
President Wilson refused to recognize Huerta due to the fact that he came to power illegally by killing a rival. Wilson believed that the non-recognition of the dictator would contribute to his overthrow and the necessary reforms. The direct result of this "bystander" policy was the military intervention of the United States to prevent the delivery of weapons to the Huerta regime. When a German ship with weapons anchored in Veracruz, Wilson ordered the US Navy to capture the city. These actions, which angered the Mexicans, threatened to lead to war. Only the diplomatic mediation of Argentina, Brazil and Chile helped prevent a large-scale conflict.
After the fall of the dictatorship of Huerta, Wilson tried to reconcile the warring factions of the revolutionaries. These attempts failed, and after the defeat of Villa's Northern Division, the US recognized Carranza's government. In March 1916, Villa's detachment crossed the US border and raided the border town of Columbus, New Mexico. In response, Wilson sent a punitive expedition against the Wilists under the command of General Pershing. However, the North Americans met fierce resistance from the Mexicans and, having suffered a series of defeats, in January 1917 began the evacuation of troops from Mexican territory.
The adoption of the 1917 constitution aggravated relations between the countries, since a number of its articles infringed on the interests of North American companies in Mexico.
Constitution of 1917. The new Mexican constitution was the main outcome of the revolution. Carranza, who remained victorious, gave the force of law to the reforms promised in his revolutionary decrees. The text of the document basically repeated the provisions of the constitution of 1857, but added three fundamentally important articles to them. Article Three provided for the introduction of universal free primary education; article 27 declared all lands, waters and subsoil in the territory of Mexico as national property, and also declared the need to divide large latifundia and established the principles and procedure for carrying out agrarian reform; Section 123 was an extensive code of labor laws.
Reconstruction period. Carranza had the foresight to introduce agrarian reform into the constitution, although he himself was more conservative on this issue. In foreign policy, Carranza followed some of the principles put forward earlier and kept Mexico neutral in the First World War. On the eve of the 1920 elections, an uprising began in the state of Sonora led by generals Obregon, Adolfo de la Huerta and Plutarco Elias Calles (1877–1945). The rebels moved troops to the capital; Carranza tried to flee, but was captured and shot. For the next 14 years, Obregon and Calles ruled Mexico: they established peace in the country and began to implement some reforms.
Obregon was the first of the presidents to begin to embody the ideals of the revolution. He distributed 1.1 million hectares of land among the peasants and supported the labor movement. The Minister of Education, José Vasconcelos, launched a broad educational program in the countryside and contributed to the cultural flowering of Mexico in the 1920s, called the "Mexican Renaissance."
Calles became president in 1924 and actually remained in power for ten years. He continued the policy of patronage of the labor movement and the distribution of lands of large latifundia. At the same time, many small family farms were created, which were trained in modern agricultural technologies. Calles accelerated the construction of rural schools, began an irrigation campaign, stimulated the construction of roads, the development of industry and finance.
The internal political situation in Mexico during these years was characterized by instability, which was aggravated by contradictions with the United States. Any change of government was accompanied by riots - in 1923-1924, 1927 and 1929. The implementation of the anti-clerical program declared in the constitution caused a sharp aggravation of relations between the state and the church. The refusal of the clergy to comply with the provisions of the constitution led to the closure of church schools, to which the church responded with a temporary cessation of religious worship in churches from August 1, 1926. For three years, from 1926 to 1929, the so-called. Cristeros uprising. Church supporters, mostly peasants, killed government emissaries and burned secular schools. The uprising was crushed by government troops.
There were constant diplomatic conflicts with the United States related to American oil companies in Mexico. The Bucarelli agreement worked out in 1923 by a joint diplomatic commission resolved a number of the most acute problems and led to the recognition of the Obregon government by the United States.
In violation of earlier agreements, the government of Calles in 1925 began to prepare a law on the implementation of Article 27 of the 1917 constitution, concerning the property and land holdings of American companies. This again aggravated relations between Mexico and the United States. Things were heading for a break in diplomatic relations, if not for armed intervention, which the Mexicans considered inevitable. The situation softened in 1927, when the skilled diplomat Dwight Morrow became the US ambassador to Mexico. By following Roosevelt's Good Neighbor policy, he was able to find a compromise in solving the most pressing problems.
Obregon's assassination in July 1928 during the campaign created a political vacuum that only Calles could fill, and from 1928 to 1934 he effectively ran the country behind three successive presidents. In general, these were years of conservatism, corruption, economic stagnation and disillusionment. In spite of everything, 1929 was a record in terms of the number of lands distributed among the peasants; in the same year, the state reached an agreement with the church, and the National Revolutionary Party was created, renamed the Institutional Revolutionary Party in 1946, and in 1931 the government adopted a new labor code.
Continuation of the revolution. In 1934, during the election of a new president for a six-year term, Calles supported the candidacy of Lázaro Cardenas (1895–1970). During the election campaign, Cardenas repeated his commitment to the ideals of the revolution, traveled all over the country and directly communicated with ordinary people. The new president gradually took full power into his own hands and forced Calles to leave Mexico.
The progressive government of Cárdenas launched a broad reform campaign. The army and the ruling party were reorganized. Cárdenas dramatically accelerated the implementation of agrarian reform and distributed more land to the peasants than previous presidents combined. By 1940, ejidos (collective peasant farms) occupied more than half of all arable land in Mexico. The trade union movement revived; a broad educational program was carried out, which included intensive work among the Indian population. The reform movement reached its peak in 1938, when Cardenas nationalized the assets of North American and British oil companies.
1990s and early 2000s. By 1940, Cardenas came to the conclusion that the country needed a breather in order to consolidate the transformation. Therefore, in the presidential elections, he supported the candidacy of General Manuel Avilo Camacho (1897-1955), a man of moderate conservative views. The new president favored the church, patronized private land ownership and put Fidel Velasquez at the head of the trade union movement, who shared his views in many respects. In 1942, he signed a number of agreements with the United States and settled the conflict that arose in 1938 in connection with the nationalization of the oil industry. In response, the United States pledged to provide financial assistance to stabilize the Mexican peso, build roads and industrialize the country.
The Second World War had a significant impact on the development of the country. Mexico became an ally of the anti-Hitler coalition and declared war on the Axis. She participated in the work of the guard service, supplied raw materials and labor to the Allies, three hundred Mexican pilots served at air bases in the Philippine Islands, and later in Taiwan. Financial and technological assistance from the United States enabled Mexico to modernize its railroads and industry. Mexico was forced to develop its own production partly because the war had deprived it of European imports. The war raised world prices, created favorable conditions for trade, allowed Mexico to accumulate foreign exchange reserves, which were directed to the needs of industrialization. Finally, the war brought Mexico to the arena of world politics, helped her get rid of the provincial complex, and increased the country's international prestige.
Miguel Alemán, the first civilian president since Madero, ruled Mexico from 1946-1952. Under him, the political influence of big business increased, agreements were signed with the church and with foreign investors, and friendly relations with the United States were strengthened. The Aleman government directed its main efforts to the implementation of industrialization programs, industrial development of the regions, irrigation, and the introduction of modern agricultural technologies. It was a period of economic growth, grandiose public projects, large-scale construction.
Alemán's excessive projects and promises and the economic crisis that broke out created no small difficulties for President Adolfo Ruiz Cortines (1952–1958). However, the president managed to restore the pace of development of the Mexican economy and curb corruption. He focused on the modernization of ports and maritime transport. Under him, the distribution of land to peasants resumed, and social assistance to workers expanded.
The policies of Cortines were continued by Adolfo López Mateos (1958–1964). He widely promoted the concept of Mexican identity at home and abroad, curbed extremism, undertook tax reform, nationalized energy and film industries, accelerated land reform, and launched an 11-year program to develop rural education.
Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, president from 1964-1970, pursued a moderate course, maneuvering between conservative and reformist tendencies both in the country and in the ruling party. During his reign, production developed at an extremely rapid pace with an annual increase in gross national product of 6.5%. Per capita income has risen sharply. However, the inadequate distribution of material wealth did not allow to effectively solve the problems in the field of education and social security of the rapidly growing population. In 1967, the largest single distribution of land in the history of Mexico was carried out - 1 million hectares. At the same time, social tensions grew behind the façade of economic success, which culminated in student unrest in the summer and autumn of 1968. The shooting on October 2, 1968 of a peaceful student demonstration in Three Cultures Square, which resulted in hundreds of victims, was in stark contrast to the festivities to mark the opening of the Olympic Games, which took place in the same month. In 1969, the first metro lines were opened in Mexico City. In August 1970, Diaz Ordaz settled with US President Richard Nixon all border disputes between the two countries.
Luis Echeverria Alvarez was elected president in 1970. In 1973, his government passed a law to strictly control foreign investment in Mexico. Echeverria strengthened Mexico's ties with other Latin American countries, primarily with Cuba, Peru and Chile. In 1972 Mexico established diplomatic relations with China.
The election of José López Portillo to the presidency (1976-1982) coincided with the discovery of large oil fields in the states of Chiapas and Tabasco and on the shelf of the Gulf of Campeche. Between 1976 and 1982 Mexico tripled its oil production and became one of the leading oil producing countries. Soaring oil prices brought huge profits to the country, to which were added large loans, mainly from US banks, under the guarantee of income from oil sales.
The Mexican oil boom ended in 1981 with a fall in oil prices and a decline in oil sales. By the summer of 1982, the country could no longer make the necessary payments on foreign loans. At the same time, wealthy Mexicans were exporting huge amounts of foreign currency outside the country, washing away the foreign exchange reserves needed for imports. In this situation, López Portillo took a series of emergency measures. He nationalized banks and imposed strict controls on their foreign operations, obtained long-term loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and lending banks, devalued the Mexican peso by 75 percent, and drastically cut government spending and imports. As a result, Mexico entered a period of economic depression.
In December 1982, López Portillo was replaced as president by PRI candidate Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado. He began the fight against corruption and initiated criminal proceedings against two of the most corrupt high-ranking officials of the previous administration. At the same time, he did not touch either López Portillo himself, or the bureaucracy of the IPR and the trade union leaders associated with it. In line with IMF recommendations, de la Madrid and his fiscal planning minister, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, pursued the tight fiscal policies launched by the previous president.
In the presidential elections of 1988, a sharp rivalry unfolded between Carlos Salinas de Gortari and Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, who had left the PRI a year earlier, creating the National Democratic Front. Despite the controversial election results, Salinas was proclaimed president. In order to mitigate the effects of the financial crisis, he developed a program to protect the poor, called the National Solidarity Program. In particular, it provided for the cooperation of the central government with representatives of local authorities, who themselves determined the priorities in the economic development of their territories. Salinas generously subsidized this program ($1.3 billion by 1993).
Salinas pursued a policy of rapprochement with the Roman Catholic Church, which had long been considered an enemy of the revolution. He invited church hierarchs to his presidential inauguration, restored relations with the Vatican, softened the anti-clerical provisions of the constitution, invited Pope John Paul II to participate in the opening of a charity project in the slums of Mexico City. All these symbolic gestures were calculated to win over the Mexican Catholics, who make up the vast majority of the country's population.
In November 1993, Mexico and the United States signed a free trade agreement (NAFTA). This agreement was supposed to revive the Mexican economy and create additional jobs for Mexicans. At the end of the year, Salinas announced PRI candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio as his successor in the presidency. Mexico has been invited to join the member countries of the Asia-Pacific Economic Forum (APEC), an informal organization of the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and 11 Asian countries that holds annual trade advisory boards.
In 1992, the ruling PRI managed to win most of the governor's posts in a bitter struggle with the conservative National Action Party and the left-wing PDR, created by K. Cardenas. The opposition managed to defeat only Chihuahua and Guanajuato. She accused the ruling party of vote-rigging. Under public pressure, Congress passed in August 1993 constitutional amendments that democratized the electoral system.
After 14 months of negotiations, the US and Mexican governments signed an agreement to create a free trade zone. On January 1, 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) entered into force. In accordance with it, Mexico undertook to liberalize its market for North American financial transactions, open access to US and Canadian firms to its telecommunications, remove restrictions on the activities of joint ventures, and so on. The greatest indignation of the peasants was caused by the fact that the Mexican authorities, contrary to the previous provisions of the constitution, recognized the possibility of alienation, purchase and division of communal lands. On January 1, 1994, the military-political organization Zapatista National Liberation Army (SANO), based on the Indian population of the state of Chiapas, raised an uprising in the state, demanding the recognition of land rights, the provision of opportunities for the development of Indian culture, the social and economic progress of the region, and the implementation of a broad democratization. The SANO forces occupied a number of settlements, but were pushed back by government troops. At least 145 people died. Human rights activists accused the army of numerous executions and arrests. Subsequently, active hostilities in the state ceased and developed into a kind of "low-intensity war." The opposition public demanded a political settlement of the conflict, but negotiations on this topic, despite some progress, were generally not very productive.
On the eve of the 1994 general elections, an amendment to the constitution was adopted, which expanded the possibilities of public control over the course of elections. The opposition was allowed access to the media. More equal opportunities for campaign finance were ensured. Disagreements in the ruling circles of Mexico were growing. In March 1994, the PRI's presidential candidate, Luis Donaldo Colosio, was assassinated (later, in August of the same year, the PRI's general secretary was assassinated). President Salinas appointed economist Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon as the new candidate. For the first time, televised debates were held between the main contenders for the presidency. In July 1994, Zedillo was elected head of state, receiving 50.2% of the vote; MHP candidate Diego Fernandez de Cevallos got almost 27% of the votes, C. Cardenas from PDR - over 17%. The PRI managed to maintain a large majority in both houses of Congress.
Having assumed the presidency, Zedillo faced an acute monetary and financial crisis, a fall in the value of the Mexican peso and capital flight from the country. An economic downturn followed in early 1995; more than 250,000 people lost their jobs (in total, 2.4 million jobs were lost in the first half of 1995). The government devalued the national currency, introduced price controls, froze wages and announced a new privatization program. The United States provided Mexico with $18 billion in aid and $20 billion in loan guarantees, the IMF and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development $28 billion. spending and limited wage growth. As a result, the Zedillo government managed to reduce inflation, overcome the trade deficit, and in 1996 achieve growth in GNP and begin to repay loans. It promised to allocate significant funds to fight poverty. In 1999, the IMF provided Mexico with a 17-month loan of over $4 billion, paving the way for further international loans of nearly $20 billion.
With regard to the crisis in Chiapas, Zedillo promised to guarantee the rights of the Indians and help the development of the region, but refused to implement nationwide reforms, especially land reforms.
The ruling PRI continued to be shaken by political scandals. Relatives of former President Salinas were accused of involvement in the assassination of the PRI General Secretary, corruption, embezzlement and abuse during privatization and received long-term prison sentences. A number of high-ranking police officials and army officers were put on trial for links to the drug mafia.
In the parliamentary and local elections in July 1997, the PRI lost its majority in the Chamber of Deputies for the first time. The opposition PDR and MHP won several more seats than the ruling party. The first direct election of the mayor of the capital was won by the leader of the PDR, K. Cardenas, who collected more than 47% of the votes, and the MHP won the elections of governors in the states of Nuevo Leon and Querétaro. Thus, the PRI retained power in 25 states, and the MHP in 6. The PRI lost votes in the communal elections as well.
In subsequent years, the PRI's power system continued to erode, and the party lost several more governorships. In 1999, a coalition of the PDR and the leftist Labor Party won the gubernatorial election in Baja California Sur; The opposition also won in Nayarit. As a result, the PRI retained power in only 21 states. The violent suppression of the university strike in 2000 also contributed to the decline in the government's popularity. To attract the sympathy of voters, the party decided to abolish the practice of appointing a presidential candidate by presidential decree and introduce a system of intra-party elections.
The general elections in 2000 radically changed the political situation in the country. The PRI lost power in Mexico for the first time. Its presidential candidate, Francisco Labastida, won just 36.1% of the vote, losing to MHP and Green bloc candidate Vicente Fox, who received 42.5% of the vote. C. Cardenas, nominated by the bloc of the PDR, the PT and a number of small left parties, won 16.6%, Gilberto Rincon (Social Democracy Party) - 1.6%, Manuel Camacho (Party of the Democratic Center) - 0.6% and Porfirio Munoz from the Genuine Party of the Mexican Revolution - 0.4%. However, the coalition that came to power failed to win an absolute majority of seats in Congress. The PRI again lost the election of the mayor of the capital and lost the post of governor of Chiapas.
Upon assuming the presidency, Vicente Fox promised to make dramatic changes. But by 2003, he had not succeeded in realizing his program and promises: to privatize energy, agree to liberalize the migration of Mexicans to the United States, create 1 million new jobs and resolve the conflict in Chiapas. The ruin of the peasantry, suffering from the impact of NAFTA, continued. As a result, during the 2003 parliamentary elections, the ruling PHP lost a quarter of the votes and about 70 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, and the PRI again came out on top.
LITERATURE
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Wayne J. History of the Aztecs. M., 1949
Parks G. History of Mexico. M., 1949
Garza M. Notes on Higher Education in Mexico. - Bulletin of Higher School, 1958, No. 5
Essays on the modern and recent history of Mexico. 1810–1945. M., 1960
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Kinzhalov R.V. Art of ancient Mexico. M., 1962
Zhadova L. Monumental painting of Mexico. M., 1965
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Lavretsky I. Juarez. M., 1969
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Kuteishchikova V.N. mexican romance. M., 1971
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Lavrov N.M. Mexican Revolution 1910–1917. M., 1972
Kirichenko E.I. Three centuries of Latin American art. M., 1972
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Pichugin P.A. mexican song. M., 1977
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Encyclopedia Around the World. 2008 .

MEXICO

UNITED MEXICAN STATES
Country in North America. In the north and east it borders with the United States of America, in the south - with Belize and Guatemala. In the east it is washed by the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, in the west by the Pacific Ocean. Mexico also owns several offshore islands. The area of ​​the country is 1958201 km2. Most of the territory is occupied by a huge plateau, surrounded by mountain ranges, which sharply turn into narrow coastal plains in the west and east. The western Sierra Madre Occidental and the eastern Sierra Madre Oriental meet in the southeastern region of La Junta to form the Sierra Madre del Sol, a labyrinth of volcanoes, among which are the highest points in Mexico, rising up to 5700 m. Central the plateau is an extension of the valleys of the southwestern United States. The height of the uplands on the doga ranges from 1830 to 2440 m above sea level, and in the north from 1070 to 1220 m above sea level. On the territory of the plateau there are two valleys: Bolson de Mapimi in the north and Anahuac in the center. The coastal plains are mostly sandy, only on the Pacific coast there are mountains in places. Baja California - a narrow peninsula about 1220 km long on the west coast - is mountainous. The Yucatan Peninsula in the southeast of the country is flat, with an average height above sea level of about 30 m. There are few large rivers in Mexico and most of them are non-navigable. The longest river is the Rio Grande, called in Mexico the Rio Bravo Del Norte, which flows along the US-Mexico border. Other important rivers of the country are the Balsas Panuco, the Grijalva, the Usumaquinta in the south and the Conchos in the north. The largest lake in Mexico is Lake Chapala in the west of the country. There are several small lakes in the Anahuac Valley.
The population of the country (estimated for 1998) is about 98552700 people, the average population density is about 50 people per km2. Ethnic groups: mestizos - 60%, Indians - 30%, Europeans - 9%. Language: Spanish (state), Aztec (Nahuatl), Maya, Otomi, about 10 more local languages. Religion: Catholics - 89%, Protestants. The capital is Mexico City.
The largest cities: Mexico City (9,800,000 people), Guadalajara (1,629,000 people), Monterrey (1,064,000 people), Puebla (1,055,000 people), Sudad Juarez (798,500 people), Leon (758,000 people), Tijuana (699,000 people). The state structure is a federal republic. The head of state is President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon (in office since December 1, 1994). The monetary unit is the Mexican New Peso. Average life expectancy (for 1998): 68 years - men, 74 years - women. The birth rate (per 1,000 people) is 25.5. Mortality rate (per 1000 people) - 4.9.
On the territory of modern Mexico were some of the most advanced civilizations in the Western Hemisphere. The first civilization was the Olmec state, which existed from 1500 to 600 BC. Maya culture reached its peak around the 6th century AD. Another civilization was the state of the warlike Toltecs, which arose in the 10th century in the center of modern Mexico. In the 11th century, the Toltecs were driven out by the Chichimeca tribe, who in turn were driven out by the Nahuatlan tribes who came from the north, the most powerful of which was the Aztec tribe or Mexico. The Aztec Empire arose in the second quarter of the 14th century and by the 15th century was the most powerful state formation in central and southern Mexico. The first European who came to the territory of Mexico was the Spanish navigator Francisco Fernandez de Cordoba, who in 1517 discovered ancient Mayan settlements in the Yucatan. A year later, Juan de Grijava, who led an expedition on the eastern coast of Mexico, brought a message about the existence of a rich Aztec empire. In 1519, a large armed detachment under the command of Hernando Cortes began hostilities against the Aztecs. In 1535 the Aztec capital fell and Mexico became a Spanish colony. At the beginning of the 19th century, when Napoleon's troops occupied Spain, a war of liberation began in Mexico, which ended in July 1821 with the formation of an independent Mexican empire. In 1823 the country was proclaimed a republic. In 1836, Mexico lost the territories of California and Texas, which declared themselves independent republics, and after the war with the United States (1846-1848) - the lands north of the Rio Grande. In 1917, after the bloody events of the Mexican Revolution, a new constitution was adopted, leading to significant political reforms. Since 1929, the Constitutional Revolutionary Party has been in power in the country; in January 1994, Mexico, together with the United States and Canada, became a member of the largest free trade zone NAFTA; on the same day, active hostilities began in the state of Chiapas, where the so-called Zapatista National Liberation Army captured several cities, demanding fundamental political reforms in the country. Mexico is a member of the UN, IMF, GATT, NAFTA, Organization of American States.
The climate in Mexico depends on the altitude. The so-called "Tierra Caliente" - a hot area - is made up of coastal plains rising from sea level to 900 m. The climate there is very humid and the average temperature ranges from 16 ° C to 49 ° C. "Tierra Templada" - a temperate region - is located at an altitude from 900 to 1800 m above sea level. The average temperature ranges from 17° C to 21° C. "Tierra fria" - a cold region - lies at an altitude of 1800 to 2700 m above sea level and the average temperature there is from 15° C to 17° C. In Mexico City, the average January temperature - from 6 ° C to 19 ° C, the average temperature in July is from 12 ° C to 23 ° C. In Monterrey - from 9 ° C to 20 ° C in January and from 22 ° C to 29 ° C in July. The rainy season lasts from May to October. The average annual rainfall in Mexico is about 750 mm, although in the semi-desert north of the country it is about 250 mm, and in some southern regions - up to 1500 mm. Due to the wide variety of temperatures, the fauna of Mexico is also very diverse. In the north, cacti, yucca, agave and mesquite grow in large numbers. In hot regions, dense tropical forests grow with a large number of tropical plant species, including several types of palm trees, rubber trees, olive trees. Oak, pine and spruce grow on the mountain slopes. The fauna of Mexico, like the vegetation, depends on the height above sea level. Wolves and coyotes live in the north. In the forests on the mountain slopes - ocelots, jaguars, peccaries, bears and cougars. There are seals on the coast. Among the reptiles of Mexico, turtles, iguanas, rattlesnakes and lizards are especially common. A large number of different types of birds.
Among the numerous museums of the country, the National Historical Museum, whose exhibits cover the period after the Spanish conquest, and the National Anthropological Museum with a collection of objects from the Mayan and Aztec civilizations, both museums in Mexico City, stand out. In addition, the Museum of Modern Art is located in Mexico City. Museum of Natural History. Mérida (Yucatan) has the richest collection of exhibits from the period of the Maya empire. In Villa Hermosa: Museum of Tobasco with a collection of art objects from pre-Columbian civilizations; La Venta Museum, located in the open air, the complex of which includes the buildings of the archaeological site of La Venta. In Guadalajara: Museum with a collection of works by Mexican artist José Clemente Orozco. Among the historical and archaeological sites in Mexico City are: the National Cathedral (1573-1675); municipal palace (1720); National Palace (1792), in which the country's president and parliament work; "Three Cultures Square, on which buildings of Aztec, Spanish colonial and modern architecture are located; a zoo; Chapul-terek castle (the former residence of the president); Basilica of St. Virgin of Guadalupe - the most important Catholic shrine of the country In Merida: the ruins of the ancient Mayan city, the cathedral of the XVI century in the style of colonial architecture In Acapulco, called the Mexican Riviera: chic hotels and casinos, beautiful beaches (from May to November it is rainy and hot, from December to July it is warm and dry) In Guadalajara: Cathedral with a beautiful fresco "Assumption of the Virgin Mary" by Esteban Muri-lo, governor's palace In Monterrey: the main square of the city of Plaza Zaragoza, the cathedral in the style of colonial architecture (1600), the episcopal palace (1782).

Bienvenidos a M?xico!- Welcome to Mexico!

Mexico is a country of two oceans. From the west, its shores are washed by the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of California belonging to it, from the east by the Atlantic Ocean with the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. The largest peninsula of Mexico is Yucata`n. When Columbus moored to its shores, he asked the Indians: “Where am I?”, To which they replied: “Yucatan”, which means “We don’t understand you ...”

The Mexican States are located in the "two Americas" - North and Latin. Latin America is a large region that includes all American states located south of the United States.

In rural areas, about 50 native Mexican languages ​​\u200b\u200bare preserved, but the national one is Spanish. Remember: Mexico is the most Spanish-speaking country in the world. More people speak Spanish here than in Spain itself!

Mexico is rich in oil. Most of it is mined on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. There are deposits of gas, iron ores and copper in this country. Even the Mexican natives knew that their lands were rich in gold and silver, and they mined them. The Spanish conquerors made Mexico the main supplier of silver to Europe. It is still being mined. Silver is used to make jewelry that is sold throughout the country.

The Maya lived in the Yucatan Peninsula and southern Mexico. This was before our era. They were well versed in arithmetic and were the first to use the number zero. She was painted in the form of an empty snail shell. For counting, the barefoot Maya used not only their fingers, but also their feet.

Chichen Itza is the main city of the Maya. It is called the city of the pyramids. Do not be surprised, they are not only in Egypt. The Maya were good architects and astronomers, and they also perfectly combined these two skills. One of the main pyramids of Chichen Itza is the Temple of Kukulkan. When the sun shines on it on the equinox days (March 21 and September 23), shadows in the form of triangles fall from the walls. At the same time, they are located in such a way that they make up the body of a snake 37 m long, “creeping” with the movement of the Sun towards its own head.

The Maya are particularly famous these days for rumors that they “promised” the end of the world. Like, it's written in their calendar. But apparently not all of you represent it. You can't tear the leaves out of it! The Mayan calendar is a system of cycles. We lived in the Era of the Fifth Sun, which ended on December 21
2012 Such Mayan days were generally considered a holiday.

The Maya loved sports. For this, even stadiums were built (like our football stadiums). What they played is reminiscent of basketball. The ball was made from a piece of rubber. He weighed over 4 kg. The piquancy of the game was that at the end one of the teams could be sacrificed. And not the loser, but the winners ...

Near Mexico City is the abandoned city of Teotihuacan. It is the oldest in the Western Hemisphere. This city is associated with the Aztec civilization, but in fact it was built before their arrival. The Pyramid of the Sun is located in Teotihuacan - the third largest in the world after the Egyptian pyramid of Cheops and the Mexican Cholula.

Maya and Aztecs did not completely disappear. Their descendants grow corn under the same sultry tropical sun as a thousand years ago, and rest in the shade of the grandiose ruins of their past, along which tourists run in anticipation of the end of the world ...

mexico city

For us, the words "Mexico" and "Mexico City" are spelled differently, but if you write them in Spanish, it will turn out the same - M?xico. The Mexicans call their capital simply - De Ef. The city is growing and all the time “takes” the nearby villages and towns. Due to the fact that it consists of many “absorbed” pieces, it is called not just the capital, but the federal district, or Distrito Federal (abbreviated as De Ef).

Mexico City is one of the largest cities in the world. About 20 million people live in it, that is, every fifth inhabitant of Mexico. And this is not the limit. The population of the city is growing. In search of a better life, poor peasants move there. The outskirts of the city are increasingly overgrown with slums.

The city is so huge that its detailed map takes half a suitcase. At the same time, the central Zocalo square (one of the largest in the world) on it is the size of a matchbox. Not far from the square there are signs with airplanes. It turns out that right in the center of the giant Mexico City is ... an airport! When the plane comes in to land, it flies over the city for an hour. It seems that it is about to sit on the roof of some house ...

Mexico City was built on the site of the drained Lake Texcoco. Mexico City ended up at the bottom of a large lake bowl, which caused a lot of problems.

In the season when there is no rain, the city is filled with dust, and the water is pumped and fed through pipes from afar. But when it starts to rain, Mexico City floods. Then with the help of the same pumps the city is saved from excess water.

Landmark of Mexico City - Chapultepec Castle, which is one of the ten most beautiful castles in the world. At first it was the residence of the royal family, then - an observatory and a military academy. Now the castle is a historical museum.

The people living in the capital are mostly poor. Each of them earns as he can. One of the popular professions is a shoe shiner, or boleros. A simple Mexican may have a stain on his shirt, but boots or boots must sparkle like a new peso.

If you look at the city from above, then the houses in it will seem like multi-colored boxes: pink, blue, green. The recesses on the facades of houses are occupied by figurines of saints, and all the beauty is hidden in the courtyards. They are planted with various tropical plants.

Mexico (officially the United Mexican States) is a state in North America, the northernmost country in Latin America. The state administration of Mexico completely repeats the state administration of the United States. The capital of Mexico is Mexico City.

The official currency of Mexico is the Mexican peso. It can be obtained at any exchange office or ATM.

The official language is Spanish, spoken by 96% of the population. The remaining 4% speak Indian languages. English is spoken only in the capital, and not everyone speaks it. Therefore, when going to Mexico (especially to small cities), I advise you to take care of the language in advance and learn a few phrases on duty that will allow you not to be hungry on the trip.

Tourists should pay special attention to safety in this country. The central states are considered the least dangerous. The most dangerous states where I would not advise you to go are the northern ones bordering the USA - Tijuana, Loredo, Ciudad Juarez. The criminogenic situation in the country began to increase since 2006, when conflicts between unofficial drug trafficking organizations intensified. This process was dubbed by the press as the “drug war in Mexico”. When traveling in Mexico, it is not recommended to use unofficial taxis, going out for a walk to put on expensive jewelry. Also, tourists are advised to move only along the most visited central streets and return to the hotel after midnight. The local population is quite friendly to tourists. But the dark streets are to be feared.

The nature of Mexico is very diverse. In one country you will find volcanoes, snow-capped mountain peaks, tropical resorts with white sand and blue oceans, waterfalls, caves filled with stalactites and stalagnites, and much more. Of particular interest are underground decks - cenotes. This is a paradise for divers. Cenotes are found only on the Yucatan Island. There are more than 6,000 of them here. Some cenotes are equipped for bathing tourists, others have not been studied at all. The water in the cenotes is crystal clear. The most popular of them are Ik-Kil (located 3 km from Chichen Itza), Iks-Kanche, Sachi cenotes, Shkeken (6.5 km from Valladoltda).

Mexico is not only a country with beautiful nature. Do not forget that a huge heritage of the Indians is concentrated here. Going to Mexico, take a couple of days to visit the pyramids. There are several historical zones in the country in which entire pyramid complexes are located. One of these zones is located near the capital of Mexico City - Teotiucan. Here you will get acquainted with the majestic buildings of the Incas and plunge into the mysterious city, founded before our era. Mexico is home to the second largest pyramid in the world, the Pyramids of Cholula. In diameter, it forms almost 1.5 kilometers! It has been partially excavated. Almost the entire pyramid is covered with earth; on its top there is a Catholic church built by the Spaniards during the conquest of the country. Archaeologists decided not to dig out the pyramid completely, so as not to destroy the historical temple and part of the city that was already built on it. This creation is worth a look!

Temascal is another attraction in Mexico. These are Indian dry baths. They are small clay houses, round in shape. Inside, in the center of the house, there is usually a stone of volcanic origin, which gives steam. These baths are considered healing. Often they were visited by shamans during their rituals.

Holidays in Mexico

Bullfight (bullfight) . It is especially popular in the north of Mexico and in Veracruz. If you want to go to a bullfight, I advise you to visit the country between November and April.

mariachi performances - take place throughout the year. Mariachis are small musical groups dressed in national costumes. They usually play traditional Mexican or country music. They can be found on city squares, on large avenues or in cafes. Often such groups are ordered for a wedding or birthday. If desired, they can order their favorite song for a fee. Mariachi can be found not only in Mexico, but also in other regions of Latin America.

The day of the Dead - perhaps the most extraordinary, but at the same time the brightest and most widely celebrated holiday in the country. It is celebrated on the first two days of November. On this day, Mexicans remember all the dead. According to legend, on this day the souls of the dead visit the house. To receive them properly, people decorate the house with photographs of the dead, flowers, candles. On this day, you can find skeleton statues, sugar skulls in stores. This is a joyful holiday, often accompanied by carnivals.

Carnivals - in different regions of Mexico, they take place at different times, from February to March. People dress up in different costumes, put on masks, which, according to legend, should scare away bad spirits, and march through the streets of the city, while dancing.

Mexican Cuisine

Mexicans are a very fiery people. They usually use hot spices, chili peppers or sauces in their dishes. If you are not a fan of spicy, you should immediately say “no picanto” when buying food. Even if the dish is declared as ordinary in its spiciness, it will definitely be with chili peppers. Pepper is everywhere: in soups, in corn, in cereals. Mexican cuisine and drinks are very diverse and very different from what our stomachs are used to. It's worth trying a little of everything.

National dishes of Mexico:

tortilla - a thin, usually corn tortilla, which in Mexico is eaten instead of bread. Meat is often wrapped in it (it turns out another dish - burrito ) or vegetables.

Quesadilla - tortilla with melted cheese.

Fajita - grilled beef with slices of tomatoes, peppers and onions.

Arraccheru - beef meat with rice or beans.

Tamale - cornmeal pies stuffed with meat, cheese, pepper, wrapped in corn leaves.

corn on the cob - sold everywhere. Corn comes in three varieties: yellow, white and black. Usually, corn is boiled and rubbed with salt, lime, mayonnaise, pepper or sprinkled with cheese at the request of the buyer. It turns out very tasty!

Beverages:

Tequila, pulque, mezcal, beer, chelada (beer with salt and lime juice) and michelada (beer with salt, lime and pepper).

Also, one of the Mexican delicacies is dried grasshoppers. They are usually consumed with beer, before which they are abundantly poured with lime juice. I'll tell you the taste for an amateur, but it's worth a try.

Mexico is a country with an interesting culture and color. Here you will not have time to get bored. And what exactly to see in Mexico and where to go - read further in this section.

Modern Mexico that we know is a country with a very rich and variable history, which developed in spite of any obstacles, and gave the world a lot of significant people and events that generally influenced the formation of history and the development of mankind.

So, the most interesting facts about Mexico:

The territory of modern Mexico, where the most developed peoples of the Western Hemisphere used to be, like a magnet, attracted both conquerors and great, free peoples. One of the first civilizations was the state of the Olmecs, who existed long before our era. Also in this territory there was a culture famous throughout the world, the Maya. The whole history of this truly amazing country is replete with fateful events. Perhaps because of this, a lot of amazing things, traditions and discoveries went into the world from this land. Here are a few of them.

• The whole world thinks that Mexico is the full name of this state, but few people know that the official name is the United States of Mexico.

• Another no less fascinating fact is that the city of Mexico City itself is one of the oldest cities in all of vast North America, and in combination, it ranks second in size in the whole world. The population of Mexico City is almost 20 million people.

• The Chichen Itza pyramid, one of the seven great wonders of the world, is located in Mexico.

• The very first printing press in all of North America, for work, was used in Mexico City, back in 1539.

• The city itself is quite dangerous for living, it is located in the so-called "ring of fire", this is the largest zone of volcanoes and earthquakes.

• Dearly beloved by all, the Chihuahua dog is the smallest in the world, and it was named after one of the states of Mexico.

• And the hot, national, drink of the Mexicans - tequila, appeared long before the country gained independence as a state.

• Mexico is the progenitor of the most delicious delicacy that the whole world loves - chocolate.

• Contrary to popular belief, in Mexico, football is considered the most beloved and popular sport, not bullfighting.

• In all of Latin America, it is Mexico that has the highest income per person.

• The Day of the Dead is one of the most important holidays in Mexican culture. It is dedicated to the memory of the dead and takes place annually on November 1 and 2. It is believed that on these days the souls of ancestors visit their home. The tradition dates back to the Mayan and Aztec times. Traditions associated with the holiday include setting up private altars in honor of the deceased, including sugar skulls, vervain, the deceased's favorite foods and drinks, and visiting the grave with these gifts.

Carnival during Day of the Dead celebrations in Mexico

• These days, a carnival is arranged, sweets in the form of skulls are prepared, special figures of dressed female skeletons are made - Katrina, that is, a fashionista, frantiha (Spanish: La Calavera de la Catrina).

Bread of the Dead - a pastry for the Day of the Dead celebration in Mexico

• They also bake the Bread of the Dead, a traditional pastry for the Day of the Dead.

Candles, ribbons and decorations of cemeteries and altars - used attributes of the Day of the Dead

• They decorate cemeteries with ribbons and flowers, their relatives make the roads to the houses of the dead with candles so that the dead can find their way home. The Day of the Dead is a day to celebrate life.

It is only at first glance that Mexico does not arouse interest, and if you delve a little into the history and culture of this great nation, you can learn and learn a lot from them.