Middle America:
MEXICO

Mexico: Regional Criteria
The Five Nations of Mexico

Mexico: Regional Criteria

• Introduction
  The region of Mexico dominates the realm with 70% of the land [mmarebar], over 50% of the realm's population (97.8 million- soon to be the 11th country with over 100 million people) (See: http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa051198.htm)  [mmpopbar], and two thirds of the realm's total economic activity.
• physical barriers [map] [mmclimat] [mmphys]
  • much like western U.S. but more tropical
  • "Y" shaped mountains, [mexphy5]
    • Sierra Madre Oriental
    • Sierra madre Occidental
    • Sierra madre del Sur
    • Plateau of Mexico
    • Valley of Mexico
  • Climate [mmclimat]
    • Dry - especially in the north [mmprecip]
    • only 12% of land receives adequate rainfall [wdarable]
    • more tropical in south and east
• cultural geography [mmethnic]
  • 60% Mestizo; 30% Amerindian; 8% European
  • transculturation
• economic geography
  • measures [mmmeasur] [wbgnpmap]
  • maquiladoras
  • NAFTA
  • urbanization
• historical geography
  • Mesoamerican culture hearth [wwhearth] [mmmesoam]
  • Aztec
  • Spanish colony [mmlacol]
  • Hacienda system of land tenure
  • 1900: more than 8,000 haciendas covered 40% of the land
  • 96% of all rural families were landless, working on the haciendas
  • independence 1810
  • Mexican Revolution 1910-1917 led by Emiliano Zapata
  • Article 27 of the new constitution guarenteed a program of land redistribution
  • since 1917 about 50% of farmland redistributed mostly as ejidos
  • ejidos - government owned land, use rights given to peasant communities of approximately 20 families