Mexico

III

People

At the time of the Spanish conquest in the early 1500s, numerous advanced Native American civilizations existed in Mexico. Among the most important were the Maya, who resided in the southern and southeastern part of what is now Mexico, including the present states of Chiapas, Quintana Roo, and Yucatán. Central Mexico was dominated by the Aztecs, who had developed an extensive capital surrounded by a lake at Tenochtitlán, Mexico City’s present site.

The Spanish ultimately conquered the Native American civilizations and extended their control over the entire region, calling it New Spain. Unlike British settlers in North America, the Spaniards quickly intermarried with the indigenous people, producing a growing population of mestizos, or people of mixed European and Native American ancestry. By the end of the 19th century, mestizos had become the largest ethnic group in the population.

After World War II (1939-1945), which saw the beginning of a period of sustained industrial growth, Mexicans migrated rapidly from rural communities to large urban centers. Many of these people moved to the Federal District, which includes the capital of Mexico City and grew to contain almost one-fifth of Mexico’s population. During this postwar period the relatively unpopulated northern states also attracted numerous immigrants, as the economic base of frontier cities such as Ciudad Juárez and Monterrey grew rapidly.

A

Population

Mexico’s population grew rapidly after 1940, when improved living standards and preventive health-care measures produced a dramatic increase in longevity and a decrease in infant mortality. At the 1990 census, the nation’s population stood at 81,249,645. A decade later, at the 2000 census, the population had grown to 97,483,412. In 2007 Mexico had an estimated population of 108,700,891. Population density averaged 57 persons per sq km (146 per sq mi). The lowest density in 2000 was in the state of Baja California Sur (6 persons per sq km/15 per sq mi), and the highest was in the Federal District (5,565 persons per sq km/14,415 per sq mi). In 2007 the birth and death rates were 20 and 5 per thousand, respectively.

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After President Luis Echeverría Álvarez took office in 1970, he argued that rapid population growth would make it difficult for the government to generate positive rates of economic growth per capita. The Mexican economy had not been creating enough new jobs to provide all of its people with employment. The situation was made worse by the fact that an increasing portion of Mexico’s population was under the age of 16, and therefore dependent on the economically active population for support. Consequently, the government began providing family planning information and education. These efforts, complemented by private programs and the increasing levels of education that resulted from migration to urban areas, contributed to a significant decline in population growth rates. These rates dropped from highs of around 3.7 percent per year in the 1970s to 1.1 percent in 2007.

Internal migration has led to a substantial shift in population from rural to urban centers. In 1970 approximately 23 percent of Mexico’s population was living in cities of 100,000 or more people. By 1997 these large cities accounted for 44 percent of the population, indicating that large cities nearly doubled in size in two decades. In 2005 76 percent of Mexico’s population lived in urban areas. Mexicans continue to migrate to the cities to seek employment opportunities, as well as better educational opportunities and access to health care.

B

Political Divisions

Mexico consists of 32 administrative divisions—31 states and the Federal District, which is the seat of the federal administration.

C

Principal Cities

Mexico is a country dominated by what geographers call a primary city, a single metropolitan area that is larger than the next four cities combined. Mexico City, the capital of Mexico, had a population of 13,096,686 in 2000 and a population of 18.7 million (2003) in its metropolitan area. It has a concentration of economic, political, and cultural resources not seen anywhere else in the country. Much of Mexico’s manufacturing capacity is located in Mexico City or the Federal District, which surrounds it. Because political power is concentrated in the federal government, Mexico City dominates the country’s political life. These economic and political resources attract to the capital the majority of Mexico’s cultural resources. Most of the leading museums, prestigious educational institutions, skilled professionals, publishing firms, magazines, and newspapers are located in the capital.

Mexico’s second largest city, Guadalajara, with a population of 1,600,940 in 2005, is located about 465 km (about 290 mi) northwest of Mexico City. It was a colonial center of considerable religious and architectural importance and is now a major hub for commerce and industry. Guadalajara is second only to the capital in its importance as a cultural center. The city has produced numerous literary and cultural leaders.

Netzahualcóyotl (1,140,528) is located just east of the capital and is inhabited largely by skilled and unskilled blue-collar workers employed in nearby industrial operations in the state of Mexico and in the Federal District. Netzahualcóyotl suffers from serious problems, including inadequate housing, communications, and basic services.

Monterrey (1,133,814), located in the northern border state of Nuevo León, is the center of Mexico’s iron and steel industry and is for that reason often called “the Pittsburgh of Mexico.” Many residents of the city pride themselves on their entrepreneurial spirit and resent the domination of the capital. Monterrey is second only to the capital in its concentration of important, capital-intensive industries. It is a major center of economic activity, and a significant channel of commerce linking Mexico to the United States.

One of the oldest Mexican cities, located southeast of Mexico City in the neighboring state of Puebla, is the colonial town of Puebla (1,485,941). The state capital, it is an important commercial link between Mexico City and the major Gulf Coast port of Veracruz to the east. Finally, one of Mexico’s newer cities and an example of the rapidly growing north is Ciudad Juárez (1,313,338), a large border city with the United States and a major source of trade and transportation with its sister city, El Paso, Texas.

D

Ethnic Groups

Mexico’s population is composed primarily of mestizos, who are approximately 60 percent of the population. Indigenous peoples make up approximately 30 percent of the population, and people of European ancestry, primarily Spanish, make up about 9 percent of the population. Africans contributed to the original racial mixture when approximately 120,000 slaves were brought to the region between 1519 and 1650. By the end of the colonial period, as many as 200,000 Africans may have entered New Spain. Blacks intermarried with Native Americans and mestizos and live on both the west and east coasts. Their primary influence is centered around the Gulf Coast port of Veracruz.

A variety of factors are used to identify an individual as indigenous in Mexico, including customs, language, dress, food, and residence. The Mexican government prefers to use language as its primary determinant when counting the number of Native Americans in the population. About 8 percent of all Mexicans speak an indigenous language. Among these citizens, there is a significant decline in the percentage who speak only an indigenous language. According to the 2000 census, only about 1 percent of people spoke exclusively an indigenous language.

Native Americans are concentrated in the regions of Mexico where indigenous civilizations were located at the time of the conquest. These regions are mainly in central, southern, and southeastern Mexico. For example, the state of Yucatán, where the Maya civilization was important, has the highest concentration of Mexicans who speak a Native American language (37 percent). The state of Oaxaca is second with 36 percent, followed by Yucatán’s neighboring states of Chiapas and Quintana Roo, with 25 percent and 23 percent respectively. The states of Hidalgo and Campeche also have significant proportions of Native Americans.

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