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Is Mexico a North American country?
Is Mexico part of North America or South America?
Where is Mexico located in North America?
Is Mexico part of Central America?
Apr 27, 2022 · Have you ever wondered if Mexico is part of North America or Central America? As a Mexican, that’s a question I get asked a lot. People from North America tend to consider Mexico as part of Central America, while people from Central America tend to consider Mexico as a North American country.
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Mexico, country of southern North America and the third largest country in Latin America, after Brazil and Argentina. Mexican society is characterized by extremes of wealth and poverty, with a limited middle class wedged between an elite cadre of landowners and investors on the one hand and masses of rural and urban poor on the other. But in spite of the challenges it faces as a developing country, Mexico is one of the chief economic and political forces in Latin America. It has a dynamic industrial base, vast mineral resources, a wide-ranging service sector, and the world’s largest population of Spanish speakers—about two and a half times that of Spain or Colombia. As its official name suggests, the Estados Unidos Mexicanos (United Mexican States) incorporates 31 socially and physically diverse states and the Federal District.
More than half of the Mexican people live in the centre of the country, whereas vast areas of the arid north and the tropical south are sparsely settled. Migrants from impoverished rural areas have poured into Mexico’s cities, and nearly four-fifths of Mexicans now live in urban areas. Mexico City, the capital, is one of the most populous cities and metropolitan areas in the world. Mexico has experienced a series of economic booms leading to periods of impressive social gains, followed by busts, with significant declines in living standards for the middle and lower classes. The country remains economically fragile despite the forging of stronger ties with the United States and Canada through the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Mexico’s urban growing pains are in sharp counterpoint to the traditional lifestyles that prevail in more-isolated rural areas. In states such as Oaxaca or Chiapas, small communal villages remain where indigenous peasants live much as their ancestors did. The cultural remnants of great pre-Columbian civilizations, such as Teotihuacán or the Mayan pyramids at Chichén Itzá and Tulum, provide a contrast to colonial towns such as Taxco or Querétaro. In turn, these towns appear as historical relics when compared with the modern metropolis of Mexico City. Yet even the bustling capital city, which has been continually built and rebuilt on the rubble of past civilizations, reveals Mexico’s wide range of social, economic, and cultural struggles. As the renowned Mexican poet and intellectual Octavio Paz observed,
Past epochs never vanish completely, and blood still drips from all their wounds, even the most ancient. Sometimes the most remote or hostile beliefs and feelings are found together in one city or one soul, or are superimposed like [pre-Columbian] pyramids that almost always conceal others.
It is this tremendous cultural and economic diversity, distributed over an enormously complex and varied physical environment, that gives Mexico its unique character.
Britannica Quiz
Sharing a common border throughout its northern extent with the United States, Mexico is bounded to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean, to the east by the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, and to the southeast by Guatemala and Belize. Mexico also administers such islands and archipelagoes as the Tres Marías in the Pacific and Cozumel and Mujeres off the coast of the Yucatán Peninsula. Including these insular territories, the roughly triangular country covers an area about three times the size of Texas. While it is more than 1,850 miles (3,000 km) across from northwest to southeast, its width varies from less than 135 miles (217 km) at the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to more than 1,200 miles (1,900 km) in the north.
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Geopolitically, however, Mexico is entirely considered part of North America, along with Canada and the United States. [105] Mexico's total area is 1,972,550 km 2 (761,606 sq mi), making it the world's 13th largest country by total area .
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Under that definition, however, part of Mexico is included in Central America, although that country lies mainly in North America proper. To address this glitch, all of Mexico, along with Central and South American countries, also may be grouped under the name Latin America, with the United States and Canada being referred to as Anglo-America.
North America is a continent that includes Canada, the United States, Mexico, Central America and the islands of the Caribbean Sea. In general, it is defined as any country to the north of (and including) Panama.
Mexico is located on the northernmost part of the isthmus of Central America and is bordered by the U.S. to the north and Guatemala to the south. Geographically, it is considered part of North America, but its culture and history are closer to that of its Central and South American neighbors.
Jul 25, 2023 · Mexico, located in the southern part of North America, spans an area of 1,972,550 sq. km (761,610 sq. mi) and exhibits a diverse array of geographical features. The country borders the United States to the north, Guatemala and Belize to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west, and the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea to the east.
