Mexico has some of the finest markets in the world. The variety of produce and other items sold in markets is staggering. But not all Mexican markets are the same. The two major groups are the permanent markets (mercados), usually housed in a purpose-built structure and open for business every day, and the street market […]
Considerable attention has been focused on Mexico’s obesity problem (see “Soft drinks, obesity, diabetes and public health in Mexico”). Obesity in adults is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a Body Mass Index (BMI) greater than or equal to 30, where BMI is defined as a person’s weight in kilograms divided by the […]
Today marks the 13th anniversary of a major disaster that struck Teziutlán (current population about 65,000), a small city in the Eastern Sierra Madre, in the northeast corner of the state of Puebla, close to the border with Veracruz. The city is noteworthy as the birthplace of two prominent twentieth-century politicians: Manuel Ávila Camacho (served […]
Mexico currently has 65 Magic Towns (Pueblos Mágicos), some of which we have described in previous posts. Regular readers will know we have some reservations about the program, especially about the inclusion on the list of some places that have relatively little to attract the average tourist. Are Magic Towns distributed evenly across the country? […]
Industrial exports from Mexico are growing rapidly and diversifying. Some of this growth is coming at the expense of China and other Asian countries. For example, as Adam Thompson reported in the Financial Times, Siemens of Germany recently moved its facilities for assembling high voltage electrical equipment for power substations from China and India to […]
According to local press reports, Mexico’s Tourism Minister Gloria Guevara has confirmed that Mexico’s Magic Towns program is being considered for adoption by several other countries. Mexican tourism officials are reportedly advising their counterparts in El Salvador, Ecuador, Colombia and Chile how best to implement the program, which is designed to boost “cultural tourism”, usually […]
It is getting just as hard to keep up with Mexico’s Magic Towns program as it is to understand why some of the places deserve to be included on the list. Since our last post about Magic Towns, three more places have been added: #55 Loreto (Baja California Sur) The attractive town of Loreto [ed: […]
According to local media, the Federación Mexicana de Fútbol (FMF) president Justino Compeán has said that Mexico is going to bid to host the 2026 soccer World Cup. He is quoted as saying that, “Mexico was a great host in 1970 and 1986, so we are indeed going to bid.” It is worth noting that […]
If many of the press reports about the tragic events that led to the death of 29 Pemex workers in Reynosa (Tamaulipas) are to be believed, the problem was an explosion in a Pemex oil refinery. There is just one small “detail” in these statements: there is no Pemex oil refinery in or near Reynosa! […]
Mexico is rapidly becoming a world leader in vehicle production, which includes cars, commercial vehicles such as large trucks, pick-ups and SUVs (sports utility vehicles). Back in 1995, Mexico produced fewer than a million vehicles and ranked 12th globally. By 2011 it was making 2.68 million, placing it 8th in the world (see table). During […]
The 1991-96 cholera epidemic in Mexico originated in Peru in January 1991. It quickly spread northwards, reaching Central America by March and Mexico by July (see map). The cholera epidemic then spread slowly across Mexico before abating. The incidence of cholera was much higher in the Gulf coast states than either inland or along the […]
The production and export of tequila has been one of Mexico’s major agro-industrial success stories of recent times. In this post, we look at some of the related trends and issues. Rapid rise in production For the period 2009-2011, Mexico produced about 250 million liters of tequila a year. Of this total, 60% was “100% […]
In the first part of this two-part article – Threats to the traditional Tarahumara way of life, part one – we looked at the threats to traditional Tarahumara life posed by alcohol, deforestation and the construction of new or improved roads in the Sierra Tarahumara (Copper Canyon) area. In this part, we consider the impacts […]
The extreme isolation of the Tarahumara (until recent years) and their adaptation of some elements of the alien Spanish/Mexican culture have enabled them to survive in what most observers would regard as an extraordinarily hostile natural environment. The effects of this isolation are reflected in their culture, in their relatively equal gender roles in terms […]
Mexico is home to six of the world’s seven species of marine turtles, all of which are on the international Red List of endangered or critically endangered species. The beaches along Mexico’s Pacific coast, those in the north-east state of Tamaulipas, and those in Quintana Roo on the Caribbean, are among the world’s most important […]
A cave dwelling known as “Cueva del Chino” is located a short distance from the Posada Barrancas railway halt, very close to the present-day location of the Posada Barrancas Mirador hotel. When I first visited this cave, in the mid-1980s, I was struck by the obvious dangers of living so close to a precipitous drop. […]
Tequila is made by distilling the juice of certain species of agave plants. Agaves are commonly called “century plants” in the USA, a name derived from the length of time they supposedly grow before producing a flowering stalk – actually, from eight to twenty years depending on the species, rather than the hundred suggested by […]
Veteran blogger Matt Osborne has unearthed a real gem! This 1977 BBC documentary was the tenth episode of The Age of Uncertainty, John Kenneth Galbraith’s history of economic thought. In this episode, Galbraith examines the economics of poverty and inequality. The section of greatest interest to Geo-Mexico readers is his overview of the changing relationships between […]
Gapminder is a wonderful resource for an overview of all manner of things geographic. The link below will take a few minutes to load, but should then show how Mexico’s GDP/person (on a purchasing power parity basis) and life expectancy have changed since 1800. The size of the yellow circle for each year is proportional […]
This short (3 minute) video is a promotional video produced by Mexico City administrators in 2010. It refers only to the Federal District (México D.F.), and not to the entire Mexico City Metropolitan Area (which also includes parts of adjoining states). The video highlights some of the challenges facing Mexico City’s decision makers. It uses […]
At the time of the Spanish conquest, the Tarahumara were hunter‑gatherer‑cultivators, collecting what they could from local trees and plants, and using a version of shifting agriculture to produce crops of corn (maize), beans and squash. Their methods of farming were probably well‑ adjusted to the then-prevailing environmental conditions in the Copper Canyon region and […]
Six months ago, we gave an optimistic mention of Maya Biosana, a cacao megaproject in Quintana Roo, noting that it had received the support of the federal Agriculture Secretariat (Sagarpa): Can Mexico’s decline in cacao production be reversed? We also noted that the project was not without its critics. In this post, we look at […]
To understand the distinctive settlement patterns of the Tarahumara today, we first need to romp through a thumbnail history covering their experiences during the years following the Spanish Conquest. While it is uncertain precisely when the Tarahumara arrived in this area, or where they came from, the archaeological evidence seems to support the view that […]
The beer industry in Mexico is dominated by two major players: Grupo Modelo and Cuauhtémoc-Moctezuma, the brewing division of Femsa (Fomento Económico Mexicano). In 2011, Mexico’s breweries produced 79 million hectoliters of beer, of which Grupo Modelo was responsible for 59%, and Cuauhtémoc-Moctezuma about 25%. Between 1991 and 2011, production had almost doubled, increasing by […]
In a previous post – Update on the severe drought in northern Mexico – we mentioned two cases where water was being transferred across the Mexico-USA border and where it was proving impossible to meet the terms of existing water treaties in the face of the severe drought in northern Mexico and the southern USA. […]
According to a local Tarahumara Indian legend, the canyons were formed when “a giant walked around and the ground cracked.” However, geologists believe that a sequence of volcanic rocks varying in age from 30 to 135 million years was slowly uplifted to an average elevation of 2275 m (7500 ft) while being dissected by rivers. […]
A study by the National Statistics Institute (INEGI) based on 2010 data calculated that routine work done in the home (almost 80% of the time-value involved by women) is worth about 2.9 trillion pesos to the Mexican economy each year, equivalent to more than 20% of Mexico’s GDP. By way of comparison, manufacturing accounts for […]
The Copper Canyon region in Mexico is the informal name for the area, in the south-west part of Chihuahua state, where several deep canyons bisect the Sierra Tarahumara. The 10,000 km2 area, part of the Western Sierra Madre, is home to about 50,000 Tarahumara Indians, one of the largest native Indian groups in North America. […]
Oaxaca’s single biggest cultural event, held in the second half of July, has come to be known as the Guelaguetza, which is Zapotec for “offering” or “mutual help”. It celebrates the cultural and ethnic diversity of the state. This year’s edition (the 80th) of the Guelaguetza ends on Monday 30 July, so this is the […]
In a recent post, we mentioned a video on the Global Post website about transport developments in Mexico City. Global Post has published another short video in the same series, that is equally interesting and valuable as a teaching resource: The Earth Project: Tortilla sunshine My first experience of a solar-powered stove was during an […]