The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), together with an international committee of transportation and development experts, has awarded Mexico City the 2013 Sustainable Transport Award. The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy works with cities worldwide to bring about sustainable transport solutions that cut greenhouse gas emissions, reduce poverty, increase urban mobility and […]
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) was founded in 1961 to promote economic growth. Its current 34 members include 25 European countries along with Canada, the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Chile and Israel. Mexico joined the group in 1994. Four new members were admitted in 2010: Chile, Slovenia, Estonia […]
Colima Volcano (aka the Volcán de Fuego) is one of the westernmost volcanoes in Mexico’s Volcanic Axis, which straddles the country from west to east. The Volcano’s summit is only 8 km (5 miles) from the inactive Nevado of Colima volcano, Mexico’s sixth-highest peak, which rises 4260 m (13,976 ft) above sea level. (Curiously, despite […]
A recent post on Polis, “a collaborative blog about cities across the world”, focuses on the street patterns in Mexico City. Urban Morphology in Mexico City by Jordi Sanchez-Cuenca The post uses Google Earth images of different parts of the city to illustrate how street patterns vary between neighborhoods with different levels of wealth. This […]
Which company exports the most motor vehicles in Mexico? In term of units exported, Ford was the leader with 449,925 units. Ford exported over 97% of the vehicles it made in Mexico in 2011. Though Ford sold many new cars in Mexico, virtually all were imports, mainly from the USA or Canada. GM was a […]
Between 2000 and 2006, more than 2.3 million new low-income INFONAVIT homes were built in Mexico, a staggering rate of 2,500 new homes each and every day. The achievement was documented by photographer Livia Corona, who divides her time between New York and Mexico City, in a four-year project entitled “Two Million Homes for Mexico”. […]
Mexico’s future is largely dependent on the quality of future citizens and consequently on the quality of its current education system. The Mexican economy has done quite well in recent years because it has a productive work force that is willing to work for relatively reasonable wages. While China previously had a workforce productivity advantage […]
The highest rating programs on TV are televised novels, telenovelas. A telenovela is a limited‑run television serial melodrama, somewhat like a soap opera but normally lasting less than a year, and where the eventual ending has already been scripted. The first global telenovela was Los ricos también lloran (“The rich cry too”), originally shown in […]
Back in 2006, General Motors (GM) was the clear leader in production with 493,841 units (just over 25% of the national total). Nissan was second with 411,236 units (21%). These were followed by Volkswagen (VW) – 339,183; Ford – 329,993 and Chrysler – 307,344. The newcomers, Toyota and Honda trailed way behind with 33,835 and […]
In a previous post, we introduced the Geographic Accounts, a rich source of information about Mexico’s sixteenth century geography. The style and substance of a typical Geographic Account can be judged by extracts from the response (dated 1579) relating to Jiquilpan (then written as Xiquilpan), in what is today the western part of the state […]
Assuming that the world did not come to an end yesterday, Geo-Mexico would like to convey best wishes to everyone for the entire duration of the next Long Count Maya calendar cycle, which runs until sometime in 2406. This may allow sufficient time for some real progress to be made in environmental stewardship. Today’s post […]
Mexico’s equivalent of the Domesday Book was compiled in the sixteenth century. Conquerors often have very little idea of precisely what they have acquired until their victory is assured. In many cases, one of their first post-conquest steps, therefore, is to undertake a comprehensive survey of everything of value, or potential value. For instance, in […]
Geographic Travels, one of my very favorite Geography blogs, recently posted a photo of a Mexican Christmas Tree, accompanied by a short history claiming that the Christmas tree was first introduced into northern Mexico by German industrialists and others. That may be a popular notion, but the true history of Christmas trees in Mexico is […]
The state of Durango state finally has its first Magic Town. The small and historic town of Mapimí served various local mines, including San Vicente, Socavón, Sta. Rita, Sta. María, El Carmen, La Soledad, and the presumably traitorous Judas. The indigenous Tepehuan Indians called this place “the rock on the hill” and repeatedly thwarted the […]
Mexico’s National Statistics Agency recently released a breakdown of GDP by state for 2011. The data allow for an analysis of the spatial distribution of Mexico’s GDP. The graph below shows each state’s contribution to GDP (blue bars) and their share of Mexico’s total population (red bars): In general, Mexico’s larger states (in terms of […]
It may come as something of a surprise to many observers, but during 2012, Mexico’s state-owned oil company Pemex (Petróleos Mexicanos) has received several well-deserved plaudits for its efforts to slash the emissions associated with oil and gas exploration, reserves and production. For the fifth consecutive year, the Global Reporting Initiative awarded Pemex the highest […]
Mexico’s new president Enrique Peña Nieto took office earlier today. His single, six-year term will end in 2018. The change of government means that a final decision about the commercial planting of genetically modified (GM) corn in Mexico has been postponed until sometime early next year. As we have seen in several previous posts, GM […]
The area of influence of each individual drug cartel in Mexico is far from fixed. As cartels fight each other (and government forces) to control their markets, the cartels’ areas of influence expand and contract. This inevitably means that conventional maps of drug cartel “territories” are only a snapshot, each valid only for a limited […]
Numerous different regional music styles are found in Mexico (see map), some strongly influenced by indigenous instruments but most relying on the string and brass instruments brought by early Spanish settlers. Curiously, mariachi music, which is often considered Mexico’s national musical style, is believed to owe its origin to French immigrants and refer to wedding […]
Lagos de Moreno, just designated Mexico’s Magic Town #66, is a town with a charming ambiance. A succession of small squares with old trees and gardens, connected by shaded streets, gives it a cultured university air. At every turn there are beautifully kept old buildings to be enjoyed and it is absolutely fitting that the […]
As long ago as 1885, Ernst Georg Ravenstein, a German-English cartographer, proposed seven “laws of migration” that arose from his studies of migration in the U.K. The original seven laws, as expressed by Ravenstein, were: 1) Most migrants only proceed a short distance, and toward centers of absorption. 2) As migrants move toward absorption centers, […]
In a previous post, we quoted a press release from the Pew Hispanic Center suggesting that the net migration flow from Mexico to the USA had slowed down to a trickle, and possibly even gone into reverse (ie with more migrants moving from USA to Mexico than in the opposite direction): Net migration flow from Mexico […]
In a recent post we saw how Mexico is one of the world’s leading cement manufacturing countries: Cement production in Mexico The map shows the location of the 34 cement plants currently operating in Mexico. They include 15 belonging to Cemex, 7 to Holcim Apasco, 4 to Cruz Azul, 3 to Cementos Chihuahua, 3 to […]
How long do Mexicans live? The 20th century brought dramatic increases in longevity. From under 30 years at the beginning of the century it rose to 38 by 1930. From there it went up to 50 by 1950 and reached 62 by 1970. By 2000 it was 72, almost double the 1930 value. Women live […]
In 2011, Mexico produced 35.4 million tons of cement, 3% more than a year earlier. The first cement-making plant was built in Mexico in 1906, a few years after cement was first officially approved for use in the construction sector. Cement demand grew only slowly prior to a spate of public infrastructure projects in the […]
The indigenous Mexican peoples held many strong beliefs connected with death; for example that the dead needed the same things as the living, hence their bodies should be buried with their personal possessions, sandals and other objects. With the arrival of the Spanish, the Indians’ pagan ideas and customs were gradually assimilated into the official […]
Well… the spate of Magic Town nominations shows no sign of slowing down. The federal Tourism Secretariat has announced that it hopes to have 70 towns in the program before the new administration takes office in December. The latest five additions to the list of Magic Towns are: #58 Chiapa de Corzo, Chiapas Chiapa de […]
In an earlier post, we looked at the benefits brought by Mexico’s street markets (tianguis) to both vendors and consumers, and mentioned their long history. The geography of Mexico’s street markets (tianguis) But where, when and why did the first street markets emerge in Mexico? While there is ample evidence of long-distance trade at least […]
Several of the 62 indigenous languages currently spoken in Mexico are considered “endangered”, spoken by so few people that they will die out in the next few years. The most extreme example is Ayapaneco, a language believed to be spoken today by only two individuals. Ayapaneco (also known as Ayapa Zoque, Tabasco Zoque and Zoque-Ayapaneco) […]
An interesting historical example of central place theory is described in Ancient Mesoamerica: a comparison of change in three regions. Central place theory suggests that places of similar size (or occupying a similar level in a region’s urban hierarchy) should form a distinctive spatial pattern. They will be roughly equidistant from one another.The pattern is […]