April 2010 – Geo-Mexico, the geography of Mexico

The world’s smallest volcano is in Puebla, Mexico

Apr 302010

The Cuexcomate volcano, in a suburb of the city of Puebla, is generally considered to be the world’s smallest volcano.

The world's smallest volcano

Weighing in at an estimated 40 metric tons, it stands just 13 meters (43 feet) tall, with a reach (diameter) of 23 meters (75 feet). The name Cuexcomate derives from the Nahuatl Cuexcomac which means bowl or place for keeping things.

Mexico has thousands of volcanoes, and many very interesting ones, but Cuexcomate must surely be the only volcano in the country with a spiral staircase inside it! The volcano formed in 1664, as an offshoot parasitic cone during an eruption of a much larger volcano, Popocatépetl.

Cuexcomate is considered “inactive” and highly unlikely to burst into renewed activity. However, Popocatépetl itself has been increasingly active over the past few years, leading to several temporary evacuations of the villages around its base. If Popocatépetl were to erupt violently again, some locals believe that perhaps the subterranean link to Cuexcomate might be re-established and the world’s smallest volcano could become somewhat larger…

Let’s hope that never happens. It would bring an end to one of the more unusual tourist attractions in this part of Mexico. Climbing down a spiral staircase into claustrophobic darkness is hardly an everyday experience for a tourist, or indeed for a vulcanologist. The crater is about eight meters across. Inside there is, frankly, not much to see apart from the inevitable lava!

Cuexcomate volcano is located in a residential suburb of the city of Puebla, a city better known for its proximity to archaeological sites, colonial buildings and a massive Volkswagen factory.

Factual note:
The world’s smallest active volcano is probably Mount Taal, located near the city of Tagaytay in the Philippines. It is a positively gargantuan 508 meters (1,660 feet) high, more than thirty-nine times the height of Cuexcomate, its Lilliputian cousin.

This is an edited version of an article first published on MexConnect: Original article

Volcanoes, in all their sizes and shapes are discussed in chapter 2 of Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico

The disparities in Mexico between indigenous peoples and the remainder of the population

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Apr 292010

Most of Mexico’s indigenous population lives in small, isolated rural localities with under 500 inhabitants. These communities are very disadvantaged compared with other Mexican communities. About one-third of the nation’s 2442 municipalities are indigenous. However, almost half of all the municipalities defined by the National Statistics Institute (INEGI) as “highly marginalized” are indigenous, as are a whopping 82% of the “very highly marginalized” municipalities.

The incidence of extreme poverty is much higher in indigenous municipalities than in non-indigenous municipalities. Indigenous villages are among the nation’s poorest rural communities. Indigenous language speakers trail behind other Mexicans in virtually every socioeconomic indicator. About 33% are illiterate, compared to the national rate of only 9.5%. Most leave school prematurely to help their families earn a living.

Indigenous females get a year’s less schooling than indigenous males. They suffer from poor nutrition and their fertility rate is 40% higher than the national average, but 5% of indigenous infants die before reaching their first birthday. About 85% of indigenous household are below the Mexican poverty line and over half live in “extreme poverty”. Over one third of houses lack electricity and over half lack piped water. There is no question. Indigenous peoples have a far lower standard of living than other Mexicans.

Despite their extreme poverty, indigenous communities have managed to remain remarkably stable while collectively pursuing their relatively well organized survival strategies. Their belief systems and rich knowledge of nature remain largely intact. Over 90% of indigenous peoples own their homes and farm plots.

Mexico’s indigenous groups are the subject of chapter 10 of of Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico; variations in the quality of life within Mexico are analyzed in chapter 29.

Mexico’s export trade in drugs

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Apr 282010

These paragraphs come from a Stratfor Global Security and Intelligence Report by Fred Burton and Ben West, When the Mexican Drug Trade Hits the Border, published 15 April 2009 (republished with permission of STRATFOR).

Though the drug trade as a whole is highly complex, the underlying concept is as simple as getting narcotics from South America to the consuming markets — chief among them the United States, which is the world’s largest drug market. Traffickers use Central America and Mexico as a pipeline to move their goods north. The objective of the Latin American smuggler is to get as much tonnage as possible from Colombia, Peru and Bolivia to the lucrative American market and avoid interdictions by authorities along the way.

However, as narcotic shipments near the U.S.-Mexican border, wholesale trafficking turns into the more micro process of retail distribution. In southern Mexico, drug traffickers move product north in bulk, but as shipments cross the U.S. border, wholesale shipments are broken down into smaller parcels in order to hedge against interdiction and prepare the product for the end user. One way to think about the difference in tactics between trafficking drugs in Central America and Mexico and distributing drugs in the United States is to imagine a company like UPS or FedEx. Shipping air cargo from, say, New York to Los Angeles requires different resources than delivering packages to individual homes in southern California. Several tons of freight from the New York area can be quickly flown to the Los Angeles area. But as the cargo gets closer to its final destination, it is broken up into smaller loads that are shipped via tractor trailer to distribution centers around the region, and finally divided further into discrete packages carried in parcel trucks to individual homes.

As products move through the supply chain, they require more specific handling and detailed knowledge of an area, which requires more manpower. The same, more or less, can be said for drug shipments. This can be seen in interdiction reports. When narcotics are intercepted traversing South America into Mexico, they can be measured in tons; as they cross the border into the United States, seizures are reported in kilograms; and by the time products are picked up on the streets of U.S. cities, the narcotics have been divided into packages measured in grams. To reflect this difference, we will refer to the movement of drugs south of the border as trafficking and the movement of drugs north of the border as distributing.

As narcotics approach the border, law enforcement scrutiny and the risk of interdiction also increase, so drug traffickers have to be creative when it comes to moving their products. The constant game of cat-and-mouse makes drug trafficking a very dynamic business, with tactics and specific routes constantly changing to take advantage of any angle that presents itself.

The only certainties are that drugs and people will move from south to north, and that money and weapons will move from north to south. But the specific nature and corridors of those movements are constantly in flux as traffickers innovate in their attempts to stay ahead of the police in a very Darwinian environment. The traffickers employ all forms of movement imaginable, including:

Tunneling under border fences into safe houses on the U.S. side.
Traversing the desert on foot with 50-pound packs of narcotics. (Dirt bikes, ATVs and pack mules are also used.)
Driving across the border by fording the Rio Grande, using ramps to get over fences, cutting through fences or driving through open areas.
Using densely vegetated portions of the riverbank as dead drops.
Floating narcotics across isolated stretches of the river.
Flying small aircraft near the ground to avoid radar.
Concealing narcotics in private vehicles, personal possessions and in or on the bodies of persons who are crossing legally at ports of entry.
Bribing border officials in order to pass through checkpoints.
Hiding narcotics on cross-border trains.
Hiding narcotics in tractor trailers carrying otherwise legitimate loads.
Using boats along the Gulf coast.
Using human “mules” to smuggle narcotics aboard commercial aircraft in their luggage or bodies.
Shipping narcotics via mail or parcel service.

These methods are not mutually exclusive, and organizations may use any combination at the same time. New ways to move the product are constantly emerging.

An overview of the geography of drug trafficking in Mexico forms part of chapter 20 of Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico. Buy your copy today!

An early scientific account of Lake Chapala, Mexico’s largest natural lake

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Apr 272010

The first detailed scientific account of Lake Chapala was written by Henri Guillaume Galeotti. It was based on a visit to Chapala in February-March 1837, and published in French in 1839.

Galeotti (1814-1858) was born in Paris and studied natural history at the Establissement Géographique de Brussels, founded in 1830 by Philippe Vandermaelen, a very famous Flemish cartographer. Vandermaelen produced an extraordinary world atlas, published in 1827, with 400 maps in six volumes, covering the entire world at a uniform scale of about 1:1,600,000.

Galeotti arrived in Mexico in December 1835; it turned out to be a visit which lasted several years. Galeotti was primarily a botanist, and was responsible for the first scientific descriptions of scores of plants, including a wide variety of cacti, for which he had a particularly fondness.
In his account of Lake Chapala, Galeotti starts with a detailed description, before providing some personal observations of storms:

“We have observed in the lake the phenomenon of occasional waves (seiches) which are in the habit of lasting plenty of time, with one part of the water remaining calm next to the rough part. This usually occurs at about five in the afternoon. We noted several of these singular effects, on February 27 and 28, and in March of 1837: the weather was calm and the temperature between 18 and 22 degrees Centigrade. The phenomenon is visible on the southern shore and in Tlachichilco and Chapala. The flood water rises from one to four feet (from 33 centimeters to 1.33 meters)…”

“From time to time, very strong whirlwinds or cloudbursts agitate the lake, snatching fish from their hideouts, and hurling them onto the nearby mountains. Some have been found on quite a high mountain near Ixtlahuacan, two leagues from the lake.”

Early map of Lake Chapala (Galeotti, 1837)

Galeotti goes on to provide a rich account of the varied flora and fauna, especially the birdlife, around the lake, including:

“(the) water sheep or pelicans (Pelecanus) which live on the island of Chapala, and fly in flocks of 50 or 60 individuals, at about five in the afternoon, to search for food on the shores, where some little fish called javai are abundant. The pelicans are very fierce and plump, and have white feathers with a yellowish green tint at the tips of their wings.”

“There is a great diversity of fish in the waters of the lake. The whitefish and the bagoc are very well-liked for the table. A great quantity of fish is caught in Easter week. The inhabitants of the vicinity subsist on little else apart from the product of this fishing, for which they prepare by building reed shacks on the shores of the lagoon, and lighting large bonfires between 6 and 7 in the evening to attract the fish.”

All in all, his article is a remarkable achievement for its time, and a true testimony to the powerful pull that Lake Chapala has had on so many foreign visitors.

Source: Galeotti, H. G. 1839 Coup d’oeil sur la Laguna de Chapala au Mexique, avec notes géognostiques. Translations by the author; all rights reserved.
Note: This is an edited version of an article originally published on MexConnect, and based on chapter 21–“The natural history of Lake Chapala”–of Tony Burton’s Lake Chapala Through the Ages, an anthology of travellers’ tales (Sombrero Books, 2008) – click here for the original article.

The hydrology of Lake Chapala is discussed in chapters 6 and 7 of Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico. A case study of ‘residential tourism’ in the villages on the northern shore of Lake Chapala is discussed in chapter19 of Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico.

Los Mochis and Topolobampo are two examples of “new towns” in Mexico

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Apr 262010

In north-western Mexico, two towns in close proximity—Los Mochis and Topolobampo—are both examples of “new towns”. Many Mexican towns and cities are more than 500 years old; relatively few major settlements in the country are less than 150 years old. How did it come about then that these two “new towns” in the state of Sinaloa were founded so close to one another?

Topolobampo dates back only as far as 1872, when a US engineer, Albert Kimsey Owen (1847-1916) arrived. Owen envisaged the city as a U.S. colony centered on sugar-cane production in this previously unsettled area and as the terminus for a railway across the Sierra Madre Occidental.

Owen had been raised in New Harmony, the city founded by Robert Owen (no relation) and decided to try and found a similar “ideal socialist” city somewhere in Mexico. In 1871-1872 he visited Chihuahua and Sinaloa and decided that the site of present day Topolobampo was ideal for his purposes. Owen founded the Texas, Topolobampo and Pacific Railroad and Telegraph Company (later the American and Mexican Pacific Railroad) and in 1881 was granted the concession for the settlement of a town.

Settlement began in October 1886. Two and a half years later, in April 1889, the first large group of colonists—300-strong—set sail from New York, arriving in Sinaloa in July, only to find a deserted beach and no Owen. Owen had returned to the USA but finally arrived the following year with another 30 colonists. During 1891, 70 more settlers arrived. They founded several additional settlements including Vegatown (Estación Vega), La Logia, El Público and El Platt. They also dug an irrigation canal, 12 kilometers long, to divert water from the Fuerte River across their lands. Despite their heroic efforts, the farming project was eventually abandoned, though the town of Topolobampo struggled on.

The Henry Madden Library of the California State University, Fresno, houses an amazing visual record of those early years, based on photos dating back to 1889-90 taken by Ira Kneeland, one of the first settlers.

Meanwhile, in 1893, another American, Benjamin Francis Johnston (1865-1937) founded the Eagle Sugar Co. (Compañia Azucarera Aguila S.A.) and constructed a factory, church, airport, dam, and the Memory Hill lighthouse. Ten years later, in 1903, Johnston officially founded Los Mochis. Johnston came to own more than 200,000 hectares. He built a veritable palace of a residence, including an indoor pool and even an elevator, one of the first in the country. The mansion’s garden, full of exotic plants, is now the city’s botanical gardens, Parque Sinaloa. The mansion itself was later torn down for a shopping plaza.

Historians and geographers have long questioned the precise motives of both Owen and Johnston, whose efforts have been described as more akin to capitalist expansion and neo-imperialism than any form of socialism. If they had come to fruition, Owen’s projects could have resulted in the annexation of a million square kilometers to a USA which had ambitious ideas of expansion at the time. Owen has been labeled variously a visionary, a madman or a conman and fraudster. Similarly, Johnston has also been regarded by some as a stooge for grandiose US expansionist plans.

Whatever the motives of their founders, both Topolobampo and Los Mochis had their start and have rarely looked back. Los Mochis gained importance as a major commercial center, marketing much of the produce grown on the enormous El Fuerte irrigation scheme. A large proportion of this produce is exported to the U.S. via the famous Copper Canyon railway. Los Mochis is the passenger terminus at the western end of the line. For freight, the line continues to Topolobampo, “the lion’s watering place” or “tiger’s water”. The port, with its shrimp-packing plant, is at the head of one of Mexico’s finest natural harbors, the head of a drowned river valley or ria, which affords an unusually high degree of security in the event of hurricanes.

This is an edited version of an article originally published on MexConnect. Click here for the original article

Urban settlements in Mexico are discussed in chapters 21 and 22 of Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico, with urban issues being the focus of chapter 23.

The geography of drug trafficking in Mexico

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Apr 242010

This article dates back to 2010. For updates, see:

This map of drug cartel territories and drug trafficking and export routes comes from a Stratfor Global Security and Intelligence Report by Fred Burton and Ben West, When the Mexican Drug Trade Hits the Border, published 15 April 2009.

Map of Cartel Territories. Copyright Stratfor. Click map for enlarged version.

The map shows the major routes for Mexico’s imports, transport and exports of drugs. The boundaries between cartel territories are in a constant state of flux as rival cartels fight to enlarge their territories.

Perhaps the single biggest shift in the geography of drug trafficking in Mexico in recent decades has been that involving drugs originating in Colombia. Prior to the 1980s, Colombian drugs reached the US and Canada either direct or via the Caribbean. During the 1980s, as US pressure mounted on these routes, Colombian cartels shifted their supply routes to Mexico, where they needed the help of Mexican gangs. These gangs rapidly became better organized and have become the powerful Mexican cartels operating today.

Mexico’s on-going “war” against drugs cartels has had most success so far against the Gulf cartel and the Zetas, who started life as the enforcing arm of the Gulf cartel. On the other hand, the influence of the Sinaloa cartel appears to be spreading. For an analysis of the Gulf cartel, including the effects of globalization on its operations, see Stephanie Brophy’s “Mexico Cartels, corruption and cocaine: A profile of the Gulf cartel” (Global Crime, vol. 9, #3, August 2008, pp 248-261)

This article dates back to 2010. For updates, see:

An overview of the geography of drug trafficking in Mexico forms part of chapter 20 of Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico. Buy your copy today!

The geography of languages in Mexico: Spanish and 62 indigenous languages

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Apr 232010

Most people realize that the national language of Mexico is Spanish and that Mexico is the world’s largest Spanish speaking country. In fact, its population, now numbering 105 million, represents about one-third of all the 330 million or so Spanish speakers in the world. Spanish is the majority language in nineteen other countries besides Mexico, and is the world’s third most spoken language, after English and Chinese.

Far fewer people realize that, in addition to Spanish, another 62 indigenous languages are also spoken in Mexico. This makes Mexico one of the most linguistically diverse countries in the world, in terms of the number of languages spoken, behind Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and India, but well ahead of China, Brazil and just about anywhere else.

The major indigenous groups in Mexico

Some estimates put the number of different Indian languages in use at the time of the Spanish Conquest in the 16th century as high as 170. This number had dwindled to about 100 by 1900, and has continued to decline to the present day. The latest estimates are that at least 62 distinct languages (and 100 dialects) are still spoken somewhere in the country.

The largest indigenous groups are those speaking Nahuatl (2,563,000; dispersed locations, and therefore not shown on the map), Maya (1,490,000), Zapotec (785,000) and Mixtec (764,000), followed by those using Otomí (566,000), Tzeltal (547,000) and Tzotzil (514,000). Other well known groups include the 204,000 having Purépecha (or Tarasco) as their first language and the 122,000 speaking Tarahumara.

At the other end of the spectrum, only about 130 people still speak Lacandón and only 80 use Kiliwa. Only 60 people still use Aguacateco in Mexico and only 50 speak Techtiteco (or simply Teco), though both languages are spoken by several thousand Indians in neighboring Guatemala.

Of course, we shouldn’t forget that many Mexicans not only speak Spanish and/or an indigenous language, but also manage pretty well in English, French, Japanese and many others!

This is an edited version of an article originally published on MexConnect – click here for the original article

Indigenous languages and cultures are analyzed in chapters 10 of Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico.

Medical tourism in Mexico, and where the Maya live

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Apr 222010

A few months ago, English journalist Rachel Rickard Straus wrote an article entitled “How I swapped a medical trial for a free holiday in Mexico” and published on the telegraph.co.uk website.

This is an interesting variation on the increasingly important field of medical tourism, much studied by geographers over the past decade or so. Several forms of medical tourism have been important in Mexico for a long time, mainly because of the significant price differential either side of the USA-Mexico border for almost all medical and dental procedures. Guadalajara was one of several cities where Americans could afford cosmetic surgery at the hands of (often) American-trained experts at a fraction of the cost back home, and were able to recuperate in relative luxury away from the preying eyes of family and colleagues.

Ms Straus appears to have thoroughly enjoyed her free holiday and apparently suffered no ill effects from the medical trial. Or did she?

Her article describes how she “lapped up the Mexican sunshine, admired the incredible Mayan pyramids and even took a road trip to San Miguel de Allende, a world heritage site.” This is fairly remarkable, since she managed all this without even leaving central Mexico! Presumably she actually meant either Aztec pyramids (if she visited El Templo Mayor in downtown Mexico City) or, much more likely the Teotihuacan pyramids, where Ms Straus had her picture taken. Archaeologists do not know all that much about the people who built the Teotihuacan pyramids, who are usually called simply Teotihuacanos. As any Mexican 5th grader knows, the Maya built their pyramids far to the east, in and around the Yucatán Peninsula, where sites such as Uxmal, Chichen Itza, Palenque, Calakmul and Tulum, among dozens of others, are proof of the Maya’s very considerable architectural skills.

Map of the state of Jalisco, including Guadalajara, Puerto Vallarta and Chapala

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Apr 212010

The state Jalisco (see map) has an area of 78,609 square kilometers and a population of 7,070,555 (2010 estimate). The state’s capital city is Guadalajara, Mexico’s second largest city (2009 population: 4,365,000). On the outskirts of the city is an area of industry that is known as Mexico’s “Silicon Valley” because of its various computer-related factories.

The state is entirely within Mexico’s “Volcanic Axis” with varied scenery, encompassing everything from inland plateaus to rift valleys, volcanic peaks, calderas and coastal landforms. Its diverse altitudes mean that there are significant climate differences within the state.

Jalisco’s economy is very diversified. The state is a major agricultural producer, but also has an important manufacturing output, and also has a significant tourism industry, centered on the coastal resort of Puerto Vallarta. The villages of Ajijic and Chapala on the northern shore of Lake Chapala, Mexico’s largest natural lake, are the home to several thousand US/Canadian retirees.

Previous blog posts about Jalisco include:

The background to Mexico’s fight against the drug cartels

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Apr 202010

The following paragraphs come from a Stratfor Geopolitical Intelligence Report about Mexico’s fight against the drug cartels, Mexico and the Failed State Revisited, by George Friedman, published on 6 April 2010. The link above is to the full text of the report.

Mexico’s Core Problem

Let’s begin by understanding the core problem. The United States consumes vast amounts of narcotics, which, while illegal there, make their way in abundance. Narcotics derive from low-cost agricultural products that become consumable with minimal processing. With its long, shared border with the United States, Mexico has become a major grower, processor and exporter of narcotics. Because the drugs are illegal and thus outside normal market processes, their price is determined by their illegality rather than by the cost of production. This means extraordinary profits can be made by moving narcotics from the Mexican side of the border to markets on the other side.

Whoever controls the supply chain from the fields to the processing facilities and, above all, across the border, will make enormous amounts of money. Various Mexican organizations — labeled cartels, although they do not truly function as such, since real cartels involve at least a degree of cooperation among producers, not open warfare — vie for this business. These are competing businesses, each with its own competing supply chain.

Typically, competition among businesses involves lowering prices and increasing quality. This would produce small, incremental shifts in profits on the whole while dramatically reducing prices. An increased market share would compensate for lower prices. Similarly, lawsuits are the normal solution to unfair competition. But neither is the case with regard to illegal goods.

The surest way to increase smuggling profits is not through market mechanisms but by taking over competitors’ supply chains. Given the profit margins involved, persons wanting to control drug supply chains would be irrational to buy, since the lower-cost solution would be to take control of these supply chains by force. Thus, each smuggling organization has an attached paramilitary organization designed to protect its own supply chain and to seize its competitors’ supply chains.

The result is ongoing warfare between competing organizations. Given the amount of money being made in delivering their product to American cities, these paramilitary organizations are well-armed, well-led and well-motivated. Membership in such paramilitary groups offers impoverished young men extraordinary opportunities for making money, far greater than would be available to them in legitimate activities.

The raging war in Mexico derives logically from the existence of markets for narcotics in the United States; the low cost of the materials and processes required to produce these products; and the extraordinarily favorable economics of moving narcotics across the border. This warfare is concentrated on the Mexican side of the border. But from the Mexican point of view, this warfare does not fundamentally threaten Mexico’s interests.

An overview of the geography of drug trafficking in Mexico forms part of chapter 20 of Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico. Buy your copy today!

Organic farming helps the Mam of Chiapas regain their cultural identity

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Apr 192010

The Mexican Mam (there are also Guatemalan Mam) first settled in Chiapas in the late nineteenth century, mainly in the deforested mountains of the eastern part of the state. They had virtually disappeared from view as a cultural group by 1970, having lost most of their traditional customs. Today, the 8,000 or so Mam, living close to the Guatemala border, have shown that it is possible for some indigenous groups to re-invent themselves, to secure a stronger foothold in the modern world.

Mexican policies from 1935-1950 towards Indian groups were focused on achieving acculturation, so that the groups would gradually assume a mestizo identity. It was widely held at the time that otherwise such isolated groups would inevitably be condemned to perpetual extreme poverty. To the Mam, this period is known as the “burning of the clothes”. Almost all of them lost their language, traditional dress, and methods of subsistence, and even their religion, in the process. Indeed, for a time, the term Mam never appeared in any government documents.

Cover of Histories and Stories book From 1950-1970, the Mexican government opted for a modernization approach, building roads (including the Pan-American highway) and attempting to upgrade agricultural techniques. The mainstay of the regional economy is coffee. During this period, most Mam were peasant farmers, subsisting on corn and potatoes, gaining a meager income by working, at least seasonally, on coffee plantations. Working conditions were deplorable, likened in one report to “concentration camps”. Plantation owners forced many into indebtedness. The Mam refer to this period as the time of the “purple disease”: onchocercosis, spread by the so-called coffee mosquito. Untreated, it leads to depigmentation, turning the skin purple, skin lesions and blindness. Reaching epidemic proportions, it devastated the Mam peasants who had no access to adequate medical services.

After 1970, the Mam gradually re-found themselves, as official policy was to foment a multicultural nation. Some, especially many who had become Jehovah’s Witnesses, migrated northwards forming several small colonies, promoted by the government, in the Lacandon tropical rainforest on the border with Guatemala. Others, spurred on by Catholic clergy influenced by liberation theology, began agro-ecological initiatives.

For instance, one 1900-member cooperative, ISMAM (Indigenous People of the Motozintla Sierra Madre), specialized in the production of organic coffee. ISMAM’s agro-ecological initiatives benefited from the advice of the community’s elders and rescued many former sound agricultural practices, such as planting corn and beans alongside the coffee bushes to avoid the degradation that can result from monoculture. It halted the application of agrochemicals, and studied methods of organic agriculture and land restoration. Its coffee, adroitly marketed, commands premium prices, double those of regular coffee sold on the New York market. The Mam have effectively taken advantage of modern technology, from phones to e-mail, to overcome their isolation, and compete on their own terms, developing export markets in many European nations, as well as the U.S. and Japan.

At the same time, the Mam have re-invented their cultural identity and helped revive the language and traditional forms of dance. They have also rewritten their past. The revisionist version is that they always had the utmost respect for nature and had always lived in harmony with the environment. In reality, as historical geographers have demonstrated, this was not always the case. Whatever the historical reality, the defense of the earth, nature and their culture is now central to the Mam.

The main source for this post is R. Aída Hernández Castillo’s Histories and Stories from Chiapas. Border Identities in Southern Mexico (University of Texas Press, 2001).

Link to original article on MexConnect

Las Tuxtlas Biosphere Reserve in Veracruz, Mexico

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Apr 172010

Scenically, the entire Tuxtlas region, in the south-eastern section of the state of Veracruz, is one of the most fabulously beautiful in all of Mexico. High temperatures combined with lots of rainfall result in luxuriant vegetation and boundless wildlife. Average monthly temperatures range from a pleasant 21 degrees C (70 degrees F) in January to a high of 28 degrees C (82 degrees F) in May, just before the rainy season kicks in. During the rainy season, from June to October, some 2000 mm (79 inches) of rain falls, often in late afternoon tropical deluges.

The jungle masking the lower slopes of the San Martín volcano gradually merges into tropical cloud forest at higher altitudes. Competing with the Silk Cotton (Kapok) and Ficus trees for light and sustenance are ground-hugging ferns. Overhead, the tangle of tree branches provides support for thousands of non-parasitic bromeliads (“air” plants) and orchids. More than 1300 species of flowering plants have been identified in this classic area for Neotropical ecology.

Bird-watchers are likely to spot the spectacular Keel-billed Toucan, or hear a Tody Motmot. Smaller birds include several species of hummingbird; look for the endemic Long-tailed Sabrewing. About half of all the bird species recorded in Mexico have been seen here, but birds are not the only wild animals inhabiting the jungle. Ocelots and tapirs are regularly seen and you may be lucky enough to see spider monkeys playing overhead in the canopy.

Clearance of the land for grazing and cultivation of the slopes to grow tobacco, bananas and sugar cane have reduced the original jungle to a relatively small number of isolated fragments. Fortuitously, this provides more varied habitats than the original vegetation, helping to enrich the area’s wildlife, further enhancing the region’s reputation as an ornithological and botanical paradise.

Fortunately an extensive area of this region was declared a Biosphere Reserve in 1998, ensuring that conservation programs now go hand-in-hand with human activities. The total area forming the Reserva de la Biósfera “Los Tuxtlas” is 155,122 hectares (380,000 acres).

Click here for original article on MexConnect

Mexico’s varied climate zones are discussed in chapter 4 of Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico, while chapter 5 is devoted to Mexico’s ecosystems and biodiversity, including the nation’s many biosphere reserves.

An overview of Mexico’s indigenous peoples

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Apr 162010

How many indigenous people are there?

According to INEGI figures, about six million Mexicans over the age of five speak at least one indigenous language. Another three million Mexicans consider themselves indigenous but no longer speak any indigenous language.

How many indigenous towns or villages exist?

INEGI figures show that, in over 13,000 localities, more than 70% of the population speaks an indigenous language. Most of these localities are small rural settlements with fewer than 500 inhabitants. These settlements are often highly marginalized, with high levels of poverty.

Speaking an Indian language is associated with disadvantage

Speakers of indigenous languages fall way below the Mexican average on almost any socio-economic indicator. For instance, almost 33% of indigenous-speakers are illiterate, compared to a national rate of 9.5%. Females are particularly disadvantaged – indigenous females stay in school a full year less than their male counterparts, and for only half the time that the average non-indigenous female does. Even today, almost 5% of indigenous infants die before reaching their first birthday. A third of indigenous houses lack electricity; more than half do not have piped water.

Where do the indigenous people live?

More than 92% of the indigenous population lives in central and southern Mexico. With the notable exception of the 50,000+ Tarahumara Indians who live in the remote Copper Canyon region of Chihuahua, other indigenous groups in northern Mexico have relatively small populations.

The reason is largely historical. The major pre-Columbian civilizations in Mexico—Maya, Aztec, Zapotec, etc—developed in central or southern Mexico. The north always had fewer indigenous people. The disparity in numbers between north and south was heightened in early colonial times, as Spain expanded its territorial interests in New Spain along two major axes of economic development: the Mexico City-Veracruz corridor (the major trade route linking the capital to the port and Europe) and the Mexico City-Zacatecas corridor (the major route linking the capital to valuable agricultural and mining areas). It is no coincidence that indigenous languages and customs first died out along these corridors, as the indigenous people were forced to become assimilated into the developing dominant culture.

Indigenous peoples and languages did much better in the south. At last count, Oaxaca has over one million indigenous speakers representing more than a third of the state’s population. The state’s largest indigenous linguistic groups are the Zapotec, Mixtec, Mazatec, Chinantec, and Mixe. Oaxaca’s ethnic diversity is celebrated in the annual Guelaguetza festival, normally held in July.

Chiapas has almost as many indigenous speakers as Oaxaca. The largest indigenous groups in Chiapas are the Tzotzil, Tzeltal and Chol. One numerically-small Chiapas group is the Mam. Its recent history is an interesting study in how an indigenous group can re-invent itself in order to survive in the modern world.

The population figures quoted in this post are from INEGI’s Census and II Conteo de Población y Vivienda 2005 (INEGI, Aguascalientes).

Click here for original article on MexConnect

Chapter 10 of Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico is devoted to Mexico’s indigenous peoples. Many other chapters of Geo-Mexico include significant discussion of the characteristics of, and development issues facing, Mexico’s many indigenous peoples.

The least cost business location

Mexico's geography in the Press Comments Off

Apr 152010

This table shows the cost of doing business in 10 countries, according to the latest (2010) KPMG guide “Competitive Alternatives” which compares business costs for more than 100 cities. The study uses a compound index of business costs, which includes 26 significant cost components, as well as a variety of non-cost factors such as labor availability and skills, economic conditions and markets, innovation, infrastructure and regulatory environment. It also incorporates personal cost of living and quality of life. The baseline for the scores is the USA which is given an arbitrary score of 100.0.

Country	Cost of doing business (USA = 100)
Mexico	81.8
Canada	95.0
Netherlands	96.5
Australia	97.8
UK	98.2
France	98.3
Italy	100.0
USA	100.0
Germany	102.6
Japan	107.6

Mexico clearly offers the lowest cost for business of the 10 countries studied by KMPG with a business cost advantage over the USA of 18.2%.

In fact, in terms of the individual cities studied, Monterrey placed 1st as the most cost-efficient business location (18.5% less expensive than the average of the four largest USA cities—New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Dallas-Fort Worth), while Mexico City placed 2nd (17.9% less expensive). 3rd place on the list was taken by the Canadian city of Montreal, 4th by Manchester (UK). Vancouver and Toronto occupied 5th and 6th, followed by the least expensive US location for business, Tampa.

Click here for the full report

The geographic center of Mexico

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Apr 142010

Where is the geographic center of Mexico? Well, believe it or not, Mexico has more than one geographic center. This is why, whenever I’ve been asked this question in the past, I’ve always deliberately fudged my reply.

Several locations lay claim to being the center, but it’s all a question of definition. Does center mean “the point where the minimum distance to the ocean in any direction is as large as possible” or does it mean “the center of mass of the country, located by complicated mathematics or by reproducing its outline on a sheet of cardboard and then balancing it on a pin”? But (I can already hear you cry), that doesn’t take into account where the mountain ranges are! “Aren’t they heavier than the flat coastal lowlands? Don’t they affect the center of mass?”. In addition, what we’ve said so far fails to take into account the uneven distribution of population in Mexico…

So, there is definitely more than one answer to the original question, “Where’s the center of Mexico?” Let’s take a look at some of the contenders.

Plaque marking Tequisquiapan's claim to be the center of Mexico

The townsfolk of Tequisquiapan, a spa town in the state of Querétaro, laid early claim to the idea that their town is the center, erecting a monument to that effect with a plaque that clearly states “this is the geographic center of Mexico”. Hmm… unfortunately, I’ve absolutely no idea why this position could count as the center!

I’ve often been told by well-educated Mexicans that the true center is actually a point in Guanajuato state, very close to (or corresponding precisely with- opinions differ) the Cerro del Cubilete, the prominent steep-sided hill that rises above the interior plains between the cities of Silao and Guanajuato. I’ve never been clear on what basis this point qualifies for the “geographic center sweepstakes”, but the hill certainly does boast a huge religious statue on its top, and is a regular destination for thousands of pilgrims.

Another alternative is offered by the government mapping and statistics organization, INEGI. Maps displayed when the option “Centro geográfico” is selected on one of its web-pages show that a point in Zacatecas is likely to be the center of mass of the country, with the precise location depending on whether only mainland points are used in the calculation, or whether islands are also included. Strictly speaking, the INEGI calculation is based on averaging the furthermost points of Mexico in the four cardinal directions, rather than on a true “center of mass” calculation or demonstration.

The true center of mass has been calculated, according to a brief text by Homero Adame Martínez in Mexico Desconocido (January 2000), to be yet another point in Zacatecas, just south of the village of Cañitas de Felipe Pescador. Most conveniently for all railroad lovers, this point is very close to where the tracks of two major railroads (from Mexico City to Saltillo and Ciudad Juarez respectively) cross.

Readers with a little time on their hands might like to construct their own cardboard cutout of Mexico to determine if the center of mass they determine corresponds with any of these versions. (If you do try this, please post your result in our comments section.) Incidentally, Mr. Adame also relates how the city of Aguascalientes once laid claim to be the center, placing a plaque (sadly no longer there) to that effect on a post in the city’s central plaza…

Well, having explored the issue of “Where’s the geographic center of Mexico?”, let’s end with a related but much simpler to answer question: “What’s on the opposite side of the globe to Mexico?” This is the point where you would eventually emerge if you were able to dig an unbelievably deep hole straight through the center (core) of the earth. If you began digging outside the National Palace in Mexico City, you’d emerge… in the middle of the Indian Ocean, relatively close to the tiny Cocos (Keeling) Islands.

Click here for the original article on MexConnect

The importance of Mexico City’s International Airport

Excerpts from Geo-Mexico, Updates to Geo-Mexico Comments Off

Apr 132010

Mexico City’s Benito Juárez international Airport handled 26.2 million passenger movements last year, making it the world’s 43rd busiest terminal, according to the Airports Council International. In terms of flights, Mexico City airport was the world’s 30th busiest, with 366,000 take-offs and landings. For freight, it was the 48th largest in the world, with 376,000 tons of cargo going through it last year. The Airports Council International is a non-profit organization which serves as the “voice of the world’s airports”.

The numbers make Mexico City airport the most important in Latin America. The on-going modernization of Terminal 1 will expand the airport’s capacity to 32 million passenger movements a year. The airport has parking spaces for 6,514 vehicles, and is served by a metro line, city bus lines, and 1,485 licensed taxis (belonging to 7 different companies). The terminal is also served by 8 mid-distance bus lines, offering regular service to the cities of Córdoba, Cuernavaca, Pachuca, Puebla, Querétaro, Tlaxcala and Toluca.

Nationwide, of the roughly 50 million air passengers each year, about half are domestic and half international. Commercial air service started in Mexico in the 1920s. The main route was Mexico City–Tuxpan–Tampico–Brownsville, Texas. By the 1930s, flights were available to Los Angeles, Cuba, Guatemala and El Salvador. Jet services to USA and European cities started in the 1960s. The routes have expanded steadily and now connect Mexico’s 29 national and 57 international airports.

Mexico City’s airport accounts for about 35% of the national total number of passenger movements, followed by Cancún (10.5%), Guadalajara (almost 9%), Monterrey (7.4%), Tijuana (5.3%) and Puerto Vallarta (Jalisco) and San José del Cabo (Baja California Sur) each with 3.6%.

International comparisons

Mexico averages about 370 air passenger movements per year per 1000 population, compared to 2430 for the USA, 1400 for Canada, 202 for Brazil and 179 for Argentina. While air travel is growing, it remains a distant third behind automobile and bus travel.

Mexico’s transportation systems, including airports, are discussed in chapter 17 of Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico.

The geography of garden flowers, many of which originated in Mexico

Other 2 Responses »

Apr 122010

Many common garden flowers were developed from samples collected in Mexico by a German botanist financed by Britain’s Horticultural Society.

Karl Theodor Hartweg (1812-1871) came from a long line of gardeners and had gardening in his genes. Born in Karlsruhe, Germany, he worked in Paris, at the Jardin des Plantes, before moving to England to work in the U.K. Horticultural Society’s Chiswick gardens in London. Keen to travel even further afield, he was appointed an official plant hunter and sent to the Americas for the first time in 1836. What was originally intended to be a three-year project eventually became an expedition lasting seven years.

By Hartweg’s time, Europeans already knew that Mexico was a veritable botanical treasure trove, full of exciting new plants. For example, the humble dahlia, a Mexican native since elevated to the status of the nation’s official flower, had already become very prominent in Europe. Mexican cacti were also beginning to acquire popularity in Europe at this time.

The Horticultural Society saw both academic and financial potential in sponsoring Hartweg to explore remote areas of Mexico, and collect plants that might flourish in temperature climes such as north-west Europe.

Fuchsia fulgens

Hartweg proved to be an especially determined traveler, who covered a vast territory in search of new plants. He collected representative samples and seeds of hundreds and hundreds of species, many of which had not previously been scientifically named or described. Orchids from the Americas were particularly popular in Hartweg’s day. According to Merle Reinkka, the author of A History of the Orchid, Hartweg amassed “the most variable and comprehensive collection of New World Orchids made by a single individual in the first half of the [19th] century”.

Shortly after arriving in Veracruz in 1836, Hartweg met a fellow botanist, Carl Sartorius (1796-1872), of German extraction, who had acquired the nearby hacienda of El Mirador a decade earlier. Sartorius collected plants for the Berlin Botanical Gardens. His hacienda, producing sugar-cane, set in the coastal, tropical lowlands, became the mecca of nineteenth century botanists visiting Mexico.

From 1836 to 1839, Hartweg explored Mexico, criss-crossing the country from Veracruz to León, Lagos de Moreno and Aguascalientes before entering the rugged landscapes around the mining town of Bolaños in early October 1837. In his own words, reaching Bolaños had involved “travelling over a mountain path of which I never saw the like before”, one “which became daily work by the continual heavy rains.” From Bolaños, Hartweg visited Zacatecas, San Luis Potosí (in February 1838) and Guadalajara, where he did not omit to include a detailed description of tequila making. From Guadalajara, he moved on to Morelia, Angangueo [then an important mining town, now the closest town of any size to the Monarch butterfly reserves], Real del Monte, and Mexico City, from where he sent a large consignment of plant material back to England. Hartweg then headed south to Oaxaca and Chiapas en route to Guatemala, Ecuador, Peru and Jamaica. He arrived back in Europe in 1843.

Hartweg visited Mexico again in 1845-46. After arriving in Veracruz in November 1845, he traversed the country via Mexico City (early December) to Tepic, where he arrived on New Year’s Day 1846, to wait for news of a suitable vessel arriving in the nearby port of San Blas which could take him north to California. In the event he had to wait until May, so he occupied himself in the meantime with numerous botanical explorations in the vicinity, including trips to Ceboruco Volcano. From California, he sent further boxes of specimens back to England, including numerous plants which would subsequently become much prized garden ornamentals. During this trip, he also added several new conifers to the growing list found in Mexico. It is now known that Mexico has more of the world’s 90+ species of pine (Pinus) than any other country on earth. This has led botanists to suppose that it is the original birthplace of the entire genus.

It took several years for the boxes and boxes of material sent back to England by Hartweg to be properly examined, cataloged and described. Many of the samples from his early trip were first described formally by George Bentham in Plantae Hartwegianae, which appeared as a series of publications from 1839 to 1842. Among the exciting discoveries were new species of conifers, such as Pinus hartwegii, Pinus ayacahuite, P. moctezumae, P. patula, Cupressus macrocarpa, and Sequoia sempervirens. Hartweg’s collecting prowess is remembered today in the name given to a spectacular purple-flowering orchid, Hartwegia purpurea, which is native to southern Mexico.

Numerous garden plants derive directly from plants Hartweg sent back to Europe. These included Salvia patens (a blue flowering member of the mint family) which became the ancestor of modern bedding salvias, the red-flowering Fuchsia fulgens, ancestor of a very large number of Fuchsia cultivars, and the red-flowering Zauschneria californica, commonly known as California fuchsia.

Original article on MexConnect

Cartogram of Mexico’s population distribution

Maps Comments Off

Apr 112010

Cartograms are maps in which the sizes of areas (such as states or countries) have been distorted to reflect some numerical value applying to that area. They are a form of topological transformation. To help make the end-product recognizable, the positions of major places are kept as close to their conventional spatial arrangement as possible. Drawing such maps used to be a very time-consuming and trial-and-error process. Only in the last decade or so has it become possible to make such maps using sophisticated computer programs. The most famous cartograms produced to date have emerged from the work of a team at the University of Sheffield in the UK. Their main website includes some fascinating examples of world cartograms portraying everything from tornadoes to tractors and nurses to national savings.

The Sheffield team have also produced population cartograms for individual countries, which offer a unique visualization of population distribution.

text

The original cartogram on its original page (a somewhat larger image).

The cartogram offers a striking image of the dominance of Mexico’s three main cities—Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey—and their surrounding areas in the nationwide distribution of population.

The home page of worldmapper.org

The 10 driest states in Mexico

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Apr 102010

These are the ten states in Mexico with the lowest annual precipitation totals. Mexico’s six wettest states receive more than twice the precipitation of any of these dry states.

Rank	State	Annual precipitation (mm)
1	Baja California Sur	176.2
2	Baja California	203.7
3	Coahuila	326.8
4	Sonora	421.6
5	Chihuahua	423.4
6	Aguascalientes	456.4
7	Durango	499.0
8	Zacatecas	517.6
9	Querétaro	558.2
10	Nuevo León	602.2

Teaching ideas:

Plot these states on a map of Mexico and see if there is any clear pattern to their location.
Does their location help to explain why these states receive less precipitation than other parts of Mexico?
What other factors, besides location, may help to explain why they are the driest states in Mexico?
What are the implications of receiving limited precipitation for economic activities?
To what extent does receiving limited precipitation influence a region’s development?

Mexico’s diverse climates are the subject of chapter 4 of Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico. Water availability, rivers, aquifers, water issues and hazards are analyzed in chapters 6 and 7. Buy your copy today!

Mexico tried to prevent Americans from migrating to Texas

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Apr 092010

In recent years, considerable attention has focused on the US government’s efforts to stem the flow of Mexicans migrating north of the border in search of jobs. But there was a time in history when the boot was, so to speak, very much on the other foot.

In the early 19th century, shortly after gaining her Independence from Spain (1821), Mexico’s territory extended considerably further north than it does today. It included modern-day Texas, as well as many other parts of what later became US territory.

The first British Chargé d’Affaires in Mexico was Sir Henry George Ward (1797-1860). Ward entered the diplomatic service in 1816, and first visited Mexico in 1823, as a member of a British government commission assessing the desirability of establishing trading relations following Independence. The following year, he married Emily Elizabeth Swinburne, who accompanied him on his return to Mexico in 1825 in his role as Chargé d’Affaires.

Map of Mexico, 1824

Two years later, Ward wrote a detailed description of how he saw Mexico. Mexico in 1827, which contains illustrations by his wife, was an early appraisal of the fledgling Mexican Republic, and was published on his return to the UK. Ward’s book provides numerous details of trade, mining, economic activity and topography, as well as pointing out many errors in Alexander von Humboldt’s earlier classic work Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain (1811).

Ward, a skilled diplomat, arrived only a few months before his American counterpart Joel Poinsett. (Poinsett, after whom the poinsettia is named, was the first US minister to Mexico). Ward was not only anti-Spanish, but also decidedly anti-American. His main goal, apparently, was to try to prevent the USA from expanding its territory at the expense of Mexico. The British diplomat believed that the incorporation of Texas into the Anglo-American states was inevitable unless the Mexican government could stem the wave of immigrants flooding southwards into the region. (How times have changed!)

The Mexican government was relatively unstable at this time, with frequent changes of leaders and some inconsistency in policies. Ward summed up the political situation that he encountered as one in which, after 13 years of civil war, the form of government had still not been determined, with great differences of opinion existing with respect to the desired degree of central authority. He found it difficult to conceive of any country less prepared than Mexico for the “transition from despotism to democracy”.

While both men were acting on behalf of their respective countries, Ward acted as a moderate balance to the interventionist politics of Poinsett. He promoted the signing of a UK-Mexico treaty of friendship, trade and migration, but the UK gradually lost influence in Mexico despite Ward’s best efforts. Meanwhile, Poinsett was trying his hardest to purchase Texas. His meddling in Mexican politics antagonized the government of Vicente Guerrero to the point where his recall was demanded in 1829.

The British Chargé d’Affaire’s greatest concern was that the USA might one day gain control over Texas ports. This would put them only three days away by boat from Tampico and Veracruz (Mexico’s main trading port) and mean that Mexico was vulnerable to invasion. Ward’s worst fears in this regard were realized later in the nineteenth century (the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848).

Original article on MexConnect.

The changing political boundaries of Mexico are described in chapter 12 of Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico. Buy your copy today!

Mexico, Manchester United, and a new soccer stadium in Guadalajara

Mexico's geography in the Press Comments Off

Apr 082010

The British soccer (fútbol) giants Manchester United have signed their first ever player from Mexico. Javier Hernández—”El Chicharito” (the Little Pea)—is a 21-year-old striker who has already scored four goals for Mexico in just four games, and is expected to play an important part in Mexico’s World Cup bid in South Africa in the summer. So far this season playing for Guadalajara-based Club Deportivo Guadalajara (better known as Chivas) in Mexico’s Primera División, Hernández has scored 10 goals in 11 matches, an outstanding strike rate, making him joint third in the goal-scoring charts.

And the origin of his nickname “El Chicharito”? Apparently, it comes from his father who was also a Chivas and Mexico soccer player, and whose nickname was “El Chicharo” (‘The Pea). Hernández’s grandfather also played for Chivas.

The deal between Manchester United and Chivas is worth about 9 million dollars. It includes an agreement for Manchester United to play Chivas in Guadalajara in July this year in a friendly game to mark the official opening of Chivas’ new 45,000-seat stadium prior to the start of the 2010/11 season. The new stadium is on the western edge of Mexico’s second city, and was designed by French firm Studio Massaud Pouzet and built by HOK (Mexico-USA).

The geography of soccer is increasingly tied to the forces of globalization. We’ll take a more in-depth look at the geography of soccer in Mexico in future posts.

Cuisine has changed as Mexico has experienced a nutrition transition

Excerpts from Geo-Mexico, Mexico's geography in the Press Comments Off

Apr 072010

Mexico has passed rapidly through a “nutrition transition”.

The traditional Mexican diet was based on corn and beans, supplemented by fruits and vegetables with relatively little meat and dairy products. Over a 15-year period the average Mexican ate 29% less fruits and vegetables and 6% more carbohydrates while consuming 37% more soft drinks. In fact Mexicans now enjoy the dubious distinction of being the world’s greatest consumers of soft drinks, downing 160 liters a year on average.

White bread is replacing tortillas, fast food is replacing home cooking.

This nutrition transition, together with a more sedentary lifestyle, fueled a “disease transition”, characterized by a shift from high mortality due to infectious diseases to high mortality from non-communicable chronic diseases.

To see how Mexico compares with other countries—USA, Spain, France, Japan, Russia, Brazil, South Africa, China and India— in terms of eating habits, see this recent graphical comparison: New York Times Business section article of April 3, 2010, entitled “Factory Food” Mexico’s per person consumption of vegetables is lower than any other country on the chart except South Africa. Mexico’s consumption of “processed, frozen, dried and chilled food, and read-to-eat meals” is lower than any country except China and India, but Mexicans make up for this with a consumption of “bakery goods” that is more than double that of any other country on the chart.

This post includes edited excerpts from chapter 28 of of Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico. Buy your copy today!

The 10 largest states in Mexico in terms of population

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Apr 062010

This table shows the ten states in Mexico which have the largest populations. The total population was 112,322,757 in 2010, according to the preliminary results of the 2010 census. These figures may change slightly when the final results of the census are made available.

Rank	State	Population (2010 census)
1	State of México	15,174,272
2	Federal District	8,873,017
3	Veracruz	7,638,378
4	Jalisco	7,350,355
5	Puebla	5,779,007
6	Guanajuato	5,485,971
7	Chiapas	4,793,406
8	Nuevo León	4,643,321
9	Michoacán	4,348,485
10	Oaxaca	3,801,871

Q. Find these ten states on a map of Mexico [printable map of Mexico in pdf format]. Do the states with the most people also have the largest land areas?

Soft drinks, obesity, diabetes and public health in Mexico

Excerpts from Geo-Mexico, Updates to Geo-Mexico 1 Response »

Apr 052010

The soft drinks industry in Mexico is big business. Nationwide, there are about 250 bottling plants. Between them they produce some 300 million cases of soft drinks a year, worth about 15.5 billion dollars. The soft drinks industry may bring economic benefits to industrialists, but is is also related to public health issues. Public health experts link the rising consumption of soft drinks and processed foods in Mexico with the rapidly rising rates of obesity, especially childhood obesity, and of diabetes.

Despite health concerns, the consumption of soft drinks in Mexico continues to rise. The per person consumption of soft drinks in Mexico has reached 160 liters a year. This means Mexico has overtaken the USA to become the world’s leading consumer of soft drinks on a per person basis, according the the Health Commission of Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies. In terms of total volume of sales, Mexico is second to the USA.

The Commission alleges that Mexico has become a “paradise” for food and drink processing firms offering products with little or no nutritive value. Alarmingly, the highest rates of increase in soft drinks consumption are in the poorer parts of the country.

A National Nutrition Survey in 1999 of 23,000 households revealed startling increases in the number of people in Mexico classified as either overweight or obese. These two categories of over-nutrition are measured by calculating the body mass index, a measure of weight adjusted for height. The percentage of women considered obese rose 160% between 1988 and 1999. In 1999 59% of women and 55% of men were either overweight or obese; by 2008 the figures were 64% and 60% respectively. Only the USA has higher rates of obesity. Even more alarmingly, the rate of childhood obesity in Mexico is also increasing rapidly. A 2002 study found that 30% of elementary school children in Mexico City and 45% of adolescents were either overweight or obese.

The increase in over-nutrition has led to rapid rises in diet-related chronic diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The overall effects of diseases on a country’s population can be assessed by working out the disability-adjusted life years (DALY), the years of expected life lost through disease or premature death. In Mexico, the DALY lost to diseases normally thought to be more typical of the developed world such as diabetes, heart attacks and strokes is estimated to be three times greater than the DALY stemming from childhood and maternal under-nutrition.

Mexico has the highest rate of diabetes in the world, more than 11%.9 The total number of patients diagnosed with diabetes has risen seven fold since 1990. Diabetes is now the leading cause of death and costs the country more than $300 million annually, one-third of the public health care budget.

This post includes an edited excerpt from chapter 28 of of Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico. Buy your copy today!

7.2 magnitude earthquake strikes Baja California (April 4, 2010)

Mexico's geography in the Press 2 Responses »

Apr 042010

Initial reports of the earthquake, which struck at at 15:40 Pacific time, are that the epicenter was about 160 kilometers south-east of Tijuana and that the earthquake occurred at a depth of about 10 kilometers. The shaking was felt in downtown Los Angeles.

Press reports confirm two fatalities and 100 people injured, as well as considerable damage to some buildings in Mexicali. More than 5000 homes in the rural areas south of Mexicali have been badly damaged. About 25,000 people have received emergency shelter and food and other assistance.

Press reports (latest at the top):

Millions in California, Arizona feel 7.2 quake (AP)

Telegraph.co.uk article about the earthquake

Damage reported from Mexicali – LA Times blog

USGS data on earthquake

USGS – Community earthquake intensity map

Tourism based on major events in Mexico (“concert tourism”)

Mexico's geography in the Press, Teaching ideas Comments Off

Apr 042010

The recent (2010) Elton John concert at Chichen Itza provides an ideal case-study for discussion in geography classes. Events such as this concert are a great starting point for a debate about the benefits and drawbacks of using world-famous archaeological or cultural sites as the setting for concerts by major modern international music stars.

Benefits:

$$$ paid directly by event organizers
$$$ paid by visiting concert-goers (“concert tourists”?) for hotels, food and transportation
free promotion for the site in world press and media

Drawbacks:

shows little respect for indigenous (Mayan) culture; the Maya consider the site a ceremonial center
many of the $$$ end up outside Mexico in the main offices of multi-national hotel chains and foreign airlines
ticket prices of $80—$800 (dollars), which most local residents are unable to afford, make this an elitist event

After those initial suggestions, it’s over to you… Readers are hereby invited to add their own suggestions of other benefits and drawbacks. Please do this via the comments section below this post. (Click here if the comments section is not currently visible.)

So, what other factors should be taken into account before reaching an evaluation of whether or not such events are a good idea?

What do YOU think?

The first geography field trip guide in Mexico

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Apr 032010

Despite the popularity of geography in Mexico’s high schools, students are rarely involved in any geographic fieldwork until they reach university. The major exceptions are those students lucky enough to attend one of the international schools offering courses such as the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme. The IB geography syllabus requires all students to have undertaken and written up a report on fieldwork. Most IB fieldwork is hypothesis-based.

It is perhaps not surprising therefore that the number of publications relating to fieldwork in Mexico is very small. There have been a limited number of specialist “field guides” published, relating to geology and geography, and coinciding with international conferences.

To the best of my knowledge, the first fieldwork guide aimed at high school students, teachers and the general public was written following a meeting of teachers in Mexico City in March 1979. Excursiones was designed to be a guide for “teachers, parents and/or organized groups interested in finding pleasant and educational ways of enjoying our environment and encouraging the spiritual elements inherent in making use of the tourist attractions that form part of Mexico’s heritage.”

The book, published by Editorial Limusa in 1983, has 14 general chapters (clothing, food, first aid, etc), followed by 17 destination specific chapters:

Cacahuamilpa
Taxco
Zempoala
Tepoztlán
Desierto de los Leones
Ruta de la Estrella
Valle de Bravo
Isla de los Aves-Ocotal
El Xinantécatl and its lakes
Piedras Encimadas
Ruta de los Volcanes
Africam Safari
El Chico
Basalt columns
Tolantongo
El Xitle and El Ajusco
Chapingo-Texcoco

We’ll take a closer look at the opportunities offered for fieldwork in some of these locations in future posts.

Map of the state of Chihuahua, Mexico

Maps 2 Responses »

Apr 012010

The map shows the state of Chihuahua in northern Mexico. The state capital is the city of Chihuahua (2009 population: 839,000) . Chihuahua is the largest state in Mexico in area: 247,087 square kilometers (95,401 square miles). The state’s population is 3,422,047 (CONAPO 2010 estimate).

Cd. Juárez is the state’s largest city and Mexico’s 8th largest city with a population of about 1.4 million. In recent years, the city, across the border from the US city of El Paso, has gained considerable notoriety on account of its violence and high murder rate. It also faces air pollution issues, discussed in chapter 23 of Geo-Mexico: the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico.

The state of Chihuahua has several important tourist attractions, including:

the Copper Canyon region (narrower, deeper and longer than the US Grand Canyon) which is home to the Tarahumar Indians, an indigenous group with a particularly distinctive lifestyle. The Copper Canyon and Tarahumar Indians are discussed in chapters 13, 17 and 19 of Geo-Mexico. A world-famous tourist train traverses this region.
Mexico’s two highest waterfalls, the Piedra Volada Falls, where the water tumbles 453 meters (1,486 feet) and the Basaseachic Falls, which are 246 meters (807 feet) in height. The Piedra Volada Falls, which are seasonal, are not shown on this map, but are a short distance north of the Basaseachic Falls.
The Casas Grandes area with its important archaeological site
Mennonite farming areas; their distinctive landscapes are discussed in chapter 11 of Geo-Mexico
Many sites associated with famous revolutionary figure Pancho Villa, including his former 50-room mansion, now a museum, in the state capital

Click here for the interactive version of this map on MexConnect website.