For a small Mexican town of somewhat nondescript architecture, Jiquilpan de Juárez, in Michoacán, has considerable claim to fame, well deserving of its Magic Town status. Jiquilpan is the birthplace of two Mexican Presidents, who played pivotal roles in national affairs, and several distinguished artists. Its unprepossessing exterior appearance offers no hint of the important […]
A short distance west of the crater lake of Santa María del Oro, in the west Mexico state of Nayarit, is Ceboruco volcano which has a cobblestone road to the top. The road starts from the old and picturesque village of Jala, eight kilometers off the main highway (Highway 15). The cornfields around Jala yield […]
How are bananas grown commercially? Banana plants (their lack of a central woody stem means they are plants, not trees) can grow to heights of 10 meters (30 ft), with leaves up to 4 meters (12 ft) in length. Banana plants grown commercially are usually much lower in height for ease of management and to […]
Geo-Mexico agrees entirely with Joseph Kerski (a key member of ESRI’s Education Team), that it is amazing “how little American students really know about their neighbor to the south.” In order to help remedy this situation, ESRI’s Witold Fraczek has created a series of online “story maps” about Mexico. The maps can be accessed in […]
Latin America’s largest solar power plant is now supplying power to the city of La Paz in Baja California Sur. The Aura Solar I photovoltaic power plant has an installed capacity of 30 MW. The plant was officially inaugurated on 19 March 2014, and will supply about 82 GWh/year of electricity to around 164,000 residents […]
The adverse effects of the dramatic collapse in December 2013 of a 300-meter section of the Tijuana-Ensenada coastal highway are likely to be felt for at least six months and probably longer. The extent of the problem is clear from the images in the news reports from the time: Mexican coastal highway cracks up and […]
Mexico’s footwear industry is heavily concentrated in three main cities: León, Guadalajara and Mexico City. Factories and workshops in the city of León in the state of Guanajuato account for about 68% of all shoes made in Mexico. The two other important manufacturing areas for footwear are Guadalajara (Jalisco) where about 18% of the national […]
According to Eduardo Barroso, the CEO of management consultancy EB Turismo, in his presentation at the XII Foro Nacional de Turismo held in Mérida, Yucatán, in February 2014, Mexico’s 83 Magic Towns (Pueblos Mágicos) attracted more than 4 million visitors in 2013, and tourist spending of more than 6 billion pesos (460 million dollars). However, he […]
Mexico’s National Statistics Institute (INEGI) has begun collecting data for the 2014 Economic Census. The census, held every 5 years, surveys the estimated 5.7 million business places throughout the country, excluding only those used for agricultural, forestry and fishing operations, or exclusively for informal business activities. 25,000 trained census takers are now systematically covering all […]
In an earlier post, The geography of banana production in Mexico, we provided an overview of banana production in Mexico. Eight different kinds of bananas are grown in Mexico (see graphic). The harvesting of bananas is mainly in the third quarter of each year. The eight main types of bananas grown in Mexico are: Cavendish […]
The city of Toluca (population 1.8 million), the capital of the State of México, was in the news recently as the site for the tri-national meeting between the heads of state of Mexico, the USA and Canada to mark the 20th anniversary of NAFTA. Nestled away inside the city, away from its burgeoning factories, is […]
Having noted in previous posts that farm sizes in southern Mexico are smaller (on average) than in northern Mexico, and that farm size is affected by socio-economic factors, and that farmers of smallholdings are unable to generate a decent profit, it is interesting to consider the relationship between farm size and marginalization. Mexico’s National Population […]
According to a US Airways customer service agent in Phoenix, “US Airways does not charge for the first checked bag on international flights. Flights from the US to Mexico and Canada are NOT considered international flights because they do not cross water.” This statement was made in response to a query regarding a charge of […]
Bananas are the world’s fourth most important dietary staple after rice, wheat and corn (maize). They are a major source of nutrition (low in fat, but rich in potassium and vitamins A, B, C and G) for people living in tropical areas. Of the 80 million tons of bananas produced globally each year, less than […]
In The market for commercial and industrial real estate in Mexico, we looked at a recent snapshot of the industrial real estate market in the last quarter of 2013, and saw how cities in the Bajío Region were outpacing cities in Central Mexico or Northern Mexico. (The snapshot came from the report ‘Industrial Markets in […]
The uneven distribution of farmland in Mexico was one of the fundamental causes of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, but by no means the only one. Landless campesinos (peasant farmers) lacked any way to control their own supplies of food. Revolutionary leaders called for the expropriation of the large estates or haciendas, which had been […]
A recent snapshot of the industrial real estate market in the last quarter of 2013 compares progress in three industrial regions in Mexico: Northern Mexico, Central Mexico and the Bajío Region. The snapshot comes from the report ‘Industrial Markets in México (Q4 2013)‘ by Jones Lang LaSalle, a global real estate services firm specializing in […]
A series of press reports over the past six months has shed interesting light on the variety of ways in which the Knights Templar cartel raises funding and manages its finances. The Knights Templar stronghold is the city of Apatzingan in Michoacán, but the cartel now operates in several states, including Guerrero. Raising money: 1. […]
In 2007, INEGI census recorded 2.4 million “units of production” (farms) under 2 hectares in size. This number is 43.5% of all farms, and includes farms not being actively worked. 22.9% of farms were between 2 and 5 hectares in area and a further 23.4% between 5 and 20 hectares. In sum, almost 90% of […]
Mexico’s National Forestry Commission (Comisión Nacional Forestal, Conafor) and the US Forest Service have signed an agreement aimed to ensure more efficient fire-fighting when dealing with wildfires on the border of Sonora/Arizona. The agreement, the Bi-national Convention on Forest Fires (Convenio Binacional de Incendios Forestales) is designed to increase public safety on either side of […]
Mexico City’s Ecobici system for public bike rentals in and around the city’s historical center celebrated its fourth birthday in February 2014. The system, established in 2010, currently has more than 60,000 24,000 registered users; between them they have already surpassed 13.5 million short trips by Ecobici. City officials calculate that the system has saved […]
As noted in previous updates on Mexico’s drug cartels and their shifting areas (and methods) of operation, it is becoming ever harder to keep up-to-date with the geography of drug cartel territories. The current federal administration has deliberately limited the amount of hard data relating to drug violence published on government sites or in Mexico’s […]
Kudos to The Economist for its short piece entitled “Old Mexico lives on” in which it points out that Mexicans and their descendents are gradually reoccupying the territory that the USA gained from Mexico in the nineteenth century. The evidence is provided by the map (below) showing “Mexican-origin population” by county for the USA. The […]
Welcome to our ninth quiz about the geography of Mexico. How many of the following can you answer correctly? If you answer a question incorrectly, you can have more attempts at each question before the answer is revealed. Good Luck! [mtouchquiz 9] Previous quizzes: How well do you know Mexico? The geography of Mexico: Quiz […]
In January 2007, the world’s longest underground river was reported from Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. [Prior to that date, the honor was held by the Puerto Princesa Subterranean River in the Philippines] The Sac Actun (“White Cave”) river system in the Yucatán Peninsula wanders for 153 km (95 miles) through a maze of underground limestone caves. […]
The Consejo Ciudadano para la Seguridad Pública y la Justicia Penal AC, a Mexican non-profit, has published an interesting report looking at the levels of violent crime in Mexico in 2013: La violencia en los municipios y las entidades federativas de México (2013) The authors take violent crimes to include intentional homicide, kidnapping, rape, aggravated […]
Figures from Mexico’s central bank (Banco de México) show that the value of remittances sent home by Mexicans working in the USA fell 3.75% in 2013, compared to the previous year. Annual remittance totals in billions of dollars: 2013 – 21.596 2012 – 22.438 2011 – 22.802 2010 – 21.303 Trends in remittance payments are […]
“Mastering Global Literacy” is a collection of short articles written to explain how “educators can cultivate globally literate learners while becoming globally connected themselves.” The book’s authors (Veronica Boix Mansilla, Anthony W. Jackson, Heidi Hayes Jacobs, William Kist, Homa Sabet Tavangar and Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano) “explore ways to bring global issues into the classroom and […]
As we saw in an earlier post – Poverty on the rise in some states in Mexico – the total number of people living in poverty in Mexico continues to rise, though the poverty rate (as a percentage) remains roughly the same. The measures of poverty used by Mexico’s National Political and Social Development Commission […]
Mexico recently approved the most significant energy reforms since the nationalization of the oil industry in 1938. The reforms end the 75-year monopoly over the energy industry enjoyed by state oil giant Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex), opening the way for private investment in petroleum exploration and production. The proposals do not allow foreign ownership of mineral […]