🇲🇽 Mexico

Human presence in the territory of Mexico dates back to at least 11,500 BC, with proposed but less securely dated sites as old as 28,000 BC. The earliest artefacts are stone tool chips found in the Valley of Mexico. This deep occupation underpins the country's later status as a cradle of civilisation.

Domestication of maize, tomato and beans produced an agricultural surplus that allowed the transition from palaeo-Indian hunter-gathering to settled agricultural villages from around 5000 BC. Villages grew denser, socially stratified and developed into chiefdoms with an artisan class. This agricultural base made Mexico one of six independent cradles of civilisation.

The Olmec culture flourished on the Gulf Coast from around 1500 BC, the first complex civilisation in the region. Olmec cultural traits diffused into formative-era cultures in Chiapas, Oaxaca and the Valley of Mexico, and the first true Mesoamerican writing systems developed in the Epi-Olmec and Zapotec cultures.

Teotihuacán, with a population of over 150,000 and some of the largest pyramidal structures in the pre-Columbian Americas, dominated central Mexico during the Classic period before collapsing around 600 AD. Competition then ensued between successor centres such as Xochicalco and Cholula, and Nahua peoples moved south to become dominant in central Mexico.

Between 1000 and 1519 AD central Mexico was dominated successively by the Toltec culture, Oaxaca by the Mixtec, and the lowland Maya by Chichén Itzá and Mayapán. Towards the end of the post-Classic period the Aztecs established a political and economic empire based in Tenochtitlan, extending from central Mexico to Guatemala. This state and its tributary populations became the foundation on which Spanish rule was later built.

Mexico was the site of several advanced Amerindian civilisations, including the Olmec, Toltec, Teotihuacan, Zapotec, Maya and Aztec. The Aztec Empire, centred on Tenochtitlan from the 14th century, was the dominant power when the Spanish arrived.

Beginning with the Royal Decree of 1503 and the Laws of Burgos of 1512, the crown, influenced by the School of Salamanca, recognised the freedom of the indigenous peoples of the Americas while simultaneously importing African slaves. The dual policy shaped colonial society and its caste system, abandoned after independence in 1821.

Although Spain had established Caribbean colonies from 1493, it first learned of Mexico during the Grijalva expedition of 1518. The intelligence gathered led directly to the conquest expedition of the following year.

Spanish forces under Hernán Cortés, with indigenous allies, captured Tenochtitlan in 1521 and founded Mexico City on its ruins, beginning a 300-year colonial era in which Mexico was administered as the Viceroyalty of New Spain (Nueva España). Large hierarchically organised populations rendering tribute and labour, plus silver deposits discovered in the north, made Mexico a jewel of the Spanish Empire.

In 1524 the crown established the Council of the Indies in Spain to supervise state authority in its colonies, complemented by a high court, the Real Audiencia, in Mexico City. State and Church, both under the Spanish crown, became the two pillars of colonial rule.

In 1535 the crown appointed the first Viceroy of New Spain, the highest state official in the colony. The viceregal office anchored three centuries of centralised administration ruling from Mexico City.

The Diocese of Mexico, created in 1530, was elevated to the Archdiocese of Mexico in 1546 under an archbishop. Catholicism was the only permitted faith, with dissenters other than Indians subject to the Mexican Inquisition, embedding the Church as a pillar of colonial authority.

Spanish military expeditions, often with native allies, conquered territory and suppressed rebellions, of which the Chichimeca War of 1576–1606 was among the most notable, followed by the Tepehuán Revolt of 1616–20. Most revolts were small-scale and posed no major threat to colonial elites.

English, French and Dutch pirates attacked Mexican coasts, including the Sack of Campeche in 1663 and the Attack on Veracruz in 1683. Trade was restricted to Veracruz on the Atlantic and Acapulco on the Pacific to protect the crown's revenue monopoly from such predation.

The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 was among the most notable Amerindian risings against Spanish authority in the northern reaches of New Spain. Such revolts periodically tested colonial military capacity without displacing the elite order.

A 1692 riot over maize prices escalated into a full-scale attack on the seats of power, with the viceregal palace and the archbishop's residence assaulted. The episode demonstrated the volatility of the colonial capital's population and the fragility of order.

Britain's seizure of Havana and Manila in 1762 during the Seven Years' War alarmed the crown about invasion. Spain responded by creating a standing military in Mexico, increasing coastal fortifications and expanding the northern presidios and missions into Alta California.

Napoleon's invasion of Spain in 1808 caused an upheaval in the empire that led to the independence of most of its New World territories. The crisis of legitimacy in the metropolis opened the way to insurgency in New Spain.

The Mexican war of independence began on 16 September 1810 when the secular priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla issued the Cry of Dolores in Dolores, Guanajuato, declaring against 'bad government'; the date is commemorated annually as Mexico's independence day. Hidalgo and some of his soldiers were executed by firing squad in 1811, and the insurgent movements of Hidalgo and Morelos also abolished slavery. The struggle ended when Agustín de Iturbide's army entered Mexico City on 27 September 1821, completing independence from Spain.

On 6 November 1813 the deputies of the Congress of Anáhuac signed a declaration of independence calling the territory América Septentrional, or Northern America. The 1821 Plan of Iguala used the same name before the country took its title from its capital.

The 1810–1821 war of independence ended Peninsular rule and New Spain became a sovereign state in 1821, with the Intendency of Mexico becoming the State of Mexico and the country named after its capital. The Plan of Iguala framed the settlement. Spain attempted reconquest during the 1820s but eventually recognised independence.

Former royal army general Iturbide became regent as independent Mexico sought a European constitutional monarch; when none accepted, he was proclaimed emperor. His rule lasted only from 1822 to 1823 before army officers overthrew him under the Plan of Casa Mata, and the empire collapsed into a fragile republic.

Following the fall of Iturbide, Central America and Chiapas separated peacefully from Mexico to create the Federal Republic of Central America. The secession sharply reduced the territorial extent of the newly independent state.

In 1824 the First Mexican Republic was established with a federal constitution using the name Estados Unidos Mexicanos. Former insurgent general Guadalupe Victoria became the first president, the first of many generals to hold the office in an era of coups and instability.

Vicente Guerrero, a signatory of the Plan of Iguala, became president in a disputed election and abolished slavery during his term from April to December 1829. His conservative vice president Anastasio Bustamante led a coup against him and Guerrero was judicially murdered, illustrating the violence of early republican politics.

In 1835 Santa Anna centralised government, suspending the federal constitution of 1824 and promulgating the Seven Laws, which concentrated power in his hands. Civil war followed and three regions declared independence: the Republic of Texas, the Republic of the Rio Grande and the Republic of Yucatán.

France sought compensation for losses claimed by its citizens during Mexico's unrest and blockaded the Gulf Coast in 1838–39. General Antonio López de Santa Anna emerged as a national hero from these conflicts and dominated Mexican politics for the next 25 years.

Texas separated in the Texas Revolution and was annexed to the United States in 1845. The annexation set the stage for the Mexican–American War and Mexico's major territorial loss.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed on 2 February 1848, ceded present-day California, Nevada, Utah and parts of several other states to the United States. Mexico's territory was reduced by roughly half.

Santa Anna returned to the presidency after the war but was ousted and exiled during the Liberal Revolution of Ayutla in 1855. His overthrow and the installation of a civilian liberal government allowed reformers to enact laws they considered vital to development.

The Constitution of 1857 separated Church and State, stripped the Church and military of their fueros, mandated the sale of Church-owned property and indigenous community lands, and secularised education. La Reforma aimed to modernise the economy and institutions along liberal lines, but provoked conservative revolt.

Conservative revolt against the liberal constitution touched off the Reform War between rival Liberal and Conservative governments from 1858 to 1861. The Liberals won on the battlefield, and the old Mexican Army, descended from colonial royalist forces, was effectively destroyed.

Conservatives sought French intervention and Napoleon III's army defeated Mexican forces, placing Maximilian of Habsburg on a newly created throne. Benito Juárez led the Liberal Republic in internal exile until the end of the American Civil War in 1865 brought US support; the French withdrew and Republican forces executed Maximilian, restoring the republic and discrediting conservatism.

Juárez, 'the personification of the embattled republic', returned as president after the fall of Maximilian and won re-election in 1867 against a challenge from Porfirio Díaz, crushing Díaz's subsequent rebellion. Juárez died in office in 1872 and was succeeded by Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada, who declared a 'religion of the state' of law, peace and order.

When Lerdo sought re-election, Díaz rebelled with the Plan of Tuxtepec and waged guerrilla war, forcing Lerdo into exile as defeat loomed. Díaz's victory in 1876 began 35 years of personal rule.

Díaz's 35-year rule brought economic stability and growth, foreign investment, an expanded rail network and telecommunications, and investment in the arts and sciences, guided by positivist advisers known as the científicos. Secular education was integral to the programme. Modernisation came at the cost of severe social unrest and suppression of opposition.

A protracted conflict against the Yaqui under Díaz culminated in the forced relocation of Yaqui people to Yucatán and Oaxaca. The regime also adopted policies of selective European immigration and persecuted certain indigenous groups in the belief this would modernise the country.

The Green Revolution, the technological movement that led to worldwide increases in crop production, began in Mexico's Yaqui Valley in the middle of the 20th century. It gave the country a foundational role in modern agricultural science.

The Mexican Revolution began in November 1910 after Porfirio Díaz reversed his announcement that he would not stand in 1910, jailed his challenger Francisco I. Madero and won a fraudulent election that set off uprisings. Díaz resigned in May 1911 and Madero was democratically elected that autumn, opening a decade-long transformational conflict that drew in figures including Emiliano Zapata, Pancho Villa and Venustiano Carranza; estimates of the death toll vary widely, with commonly cited figures of one to two million.

UNAM was officially established in 1910 and became one of the most important institutes of higher learning in Mexico. Twelve research institutes were integrated into it between 1929 and 1973, and other bodies such as the National Polytechnic Institute followed in the first half of the 20th century.

The revolutionary war killed about 900,000 out of Mexico's 15 million inhabitants, and the 1921 census reported a net loss of roughly a million people. The demographic shock interrupted the slow population growth of the preceding century before rates surged from the 1930s.

Inaugurated in March 1913, Wilson refused to recognise Huerta's regime and allowed arms sales to the Constitutionalists. In 1914 he ordered US troops to occupy the strategic port of Veracruz, a direct intervention in the revolutionary conflict.

In February 1913 a military coup backed by the Taft administration overthrew Madero's government, and he was murdered by agents of Federal Army General Huerta. The coup plunged Mexico back into civil war and shaped US–Mexican relations for the rest of the decade.

A northern coalition led by Venustiano Carranza, governor of Coahuila, and a southern peasant army under Emiliano Zapata destroyed the Federal Army in 1914, leaving only revolutionary forces in the field. The victorious coalition then splintered, renewing civil war.

Carranza's best general Obregón defeated his former comrade Villa at Celaya in 1915 and Villa's forces melted away. Carranza became president and was recognised by the United States, while Zapata's forces reverted to guerrilla war and Villa raided Columbus, New Mexico, prompting an unsuccessful US expedition of 10,000 troops.

In 1917 Germany attempted to bring Mexico into the First World War against the United States, offering the return of territory lost in the Mexican–American War. Mexico remained neutral, and the US punitive expedition withdrew as America entered the war.

Meeting in a constitutional convention at Querétaro in 1916, the victors of the Revolution drafted the Constitution of 1917, signed and ratified on 5 February. It empowered the government to expropriate resources including land, granted rights to labour and strengthened anticlerical provisions, and remains Mexico's governing document, though amended many times since.

Consolidating power in 1919, Carranza arranged the assassination of Zapata, the southern peasant leader. Carranza had won peasant support but did little land reform in office, even returning some confiscated land to its original owners.

Obregón and two other Sonoran revolutionary generals drew up the Plan of Agua Prieta and overthrew Carranza when he tried to impose a civilian successor. Adolfo de la Huerta served as interim president before the election of General Álvaro Obregón, beginning the post-revolutionary era of generals in the presidency.

Calles enforced the constitution's anticlerical provisions, provoking major conflict with the Catholic Church and Catholic guerrilla armies before an agreement ended the fighting. The confrontation defined relations between the revolutionary state and the Church for decades.

The constitution was amended to permit non-consecutive re-election so Obregón could stand again; he won the 1928 election but was assassinated by a Catholic activist. The resulting succession crisis pushed Calles to institutionalise the transfer of power.

Unable to return to the presidency himself, Plutarco Elías Calles founded on 4 March 1929 the National Revolutionary Party to manage succession and unite the factions of the revolution. Workers, peasants, office workers and briefly the army were incorporated as sectors of the single party, which was later renamed the Party of the Mexican Revolution and then, in 1946, the Institutional Revolutionary Party; it held the presidency continuously until 2000.

Without holding office, Calles remained the key politician of the Maximato from 1929 to 1934. The period ended when President Lázaro Cárdenas expelled him and implemented far-reaching economic and social reforms.

Aguirre, who governed Guerrero when the Ayotzinapa students vanished in September 2014, was accused on 6 August of concealing evidence about their fate. The case remains one of the country's longest-running human-rights investigations.

The decision, announced on 1 July 2026, followed the treaty's mandated joint review and left tariffs, rules of origin and dispute mechanisms in place while renegotiation continued. Mexican and American officials held a further round of bilateral talks later that month.

The tournament, shared with the United States and Canada, opened at Mexico City's Estadio Azteca on 11 June with performances by Shakira and Burna Boy. Mexico beat South Africa 2-0 in the opening match.

The quarter-point cut on 7 May 2026 marked the likely end of an easing cycle that began in March 2024. Policymakers cited persistent core inflation and weak growth in balancing further reductions against price stability.

The indictment, unsealed on 29 April, also alleged money laundering and fuel trafficking. Rocha Moya, a sitting governor allied with the ruling Morena party, remained in office as the case proceeded.

Construction started on 31 March on what officials said would be Latin America's largest and most modern desalination facility, producing 2,200 litres of water per second when it opens in 2029.

Oseguera's death on 22 February triggered two days of cartel roadblocks, arson and clashes across 20 states that left 25 National Guard members and dozens of cartel gunmen dead before the violence eased.

Mexico hosted the FIFA World Cup in 1970 and 1986 and co-hosted the 2026 tournament with Canada and the United States. It thereby became the first country to host or co-host the men's World Cup three times.

Manzo, an outspoken critic of cartel violence in Michoacán, was shot seven times on 1 November while a councillor and a bodyguard were wounded. His assassination triggered nationwide protests over insecurity.

Lawmakers passed the budget, a 5.9 per cent increase on 2025, in an overnight session ahead of the 15 November constitutional deadline. It targeted a fiscal deficit of 4.1 per cent of gross domestic product.

The 6 to 10 October flooding, worsened by the remnants of two Pacific hurricanes, destroyed about 100,000 homes and left thousands without power. The government deployed more than 23,000 federal and military personnel in response.

In August 2025 demonstrations were held across Mexico in protest at the 130,000 people who have disappeared and remain missing since 2007. The scale of disappearances underlines the persistent weakness of state control over criminal violence.

Official figures released in 2025 showed poverty falling from 41.9% to 29.6% between 2018 and 2024, and extreme poverty from 7% to 5.3%, though those lacking access to healthcare rose from 16.2% to 34.2%. Some specialists doubted the accuracy of the rates. Daily minimum wages rose from 88 pesos in 2018 to 315.04 pesos by 2026.

The first judicial election in Mexico occurred in 2025, extending popular election to the judiciary. The reform came amid findings by the V-Dem Democracy Report of democratic backsliding beginning around 2019.

Sheinbaum, AMLO's successor, won the 2024 presidential election in a landslide and was sworn in on 1 October 2024. Morena secured a second term in the same general election, consolidating its position as ruling party.

In 2023 Mexico ranked among the 15 highest greenhouse gas emitters, contributing 1.4% of the global total. It has pledged to cut emissions 35% by 2030, rising to 40% with external support, to reduce black carbon by 51% unconditionally, and to reach net zero by 2050.

Mexico achieved full national recognition of same-sex marriage in 2022, building on anti-discrimination laws covering sexual orientation in place since 2003. The change marked a substantial extension of civil rights.

The first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Mexico occurred in February 2020 and vaccination began that December. The pandemic also depressed remittances, a leading source of foreign income, before they recovered.

The Villanueva solar park in Coahuila opened in 2019 with a capacity of 828 MW, the largest solar power plant in the Americas. It followed the 46.8 MW SEGH-CFE 1 project in Sonora completed in 2018, whose output is sold directly to the state utility CFE.

A 2019 constitutional amendment dissolved the Mexican Federal Police, replacing it with a National Guard formed from units of the Federal Police, Military Police and Naval Police. Numbering around 110,000 personnel, it functions as a gendarmerie responsible for law enforcement but placed under military command.

AMLO, having founded the left-wing MORENA party after the 2012 election, won the 2018 election with over 50% and a broad coalition that took majorities in both chambers of Congress. His success was attributed to the exhaustion of rival political forces and his moderate discourse of reconciliation.

The 'Big Three' American carmakers have operated in Mexico since the 1930s and Volkswagen and Nissan built plants in the 1960s. In 2016 Kia opened a $1 billion factory in Nuevo León and Audi opened an assembly plant in Puebla, deepening the country's role in North American vehicle production.

In 2016 the capital dropped the Federal District designation and began a process of achieving greater political autonomy as a federal entity with its own constitution and congress. The change altered the constitutional structure of the federation.

The disappearance of 43 students at Iguala on 26 September 2014 triggered nationwide protests over the government's weak response and the corruption giving criminal organisations free rein. It became a symbol of impunity, alongside the more than 100 journalists and media workers killed or disappeared since 2000.

A major reform of the telecommunications industry in 2013 led to the creation of new broadcast television channels. It sought to loosen long-standing concentration in the sector.

After two terms of National Action Party rule, Enrique Peña Nieto returned the Institutional Revolutionary Party to power in the July 2012 presidential election, winning with a plurality of around 38% and no legislative majority, and taking office that December. The result confirmed that competitive multi-party politics had displaced hegemonic rule.

Mexico presented its gastronomy for World Heritage status in 2005, the first country to do so for a culinary tradition, and it was recognised as intangible cultural heritage in November 2010. Teotihuacan had been designated a World Heritage Site in 1987.

The global financial crisis that began in late 2008 caused a severe contraction of the Mexican economy in 2009, although growth returned quickly in 2010.

Felipe Calderon of the National Action Party succeeded Vicente Fox in 2006 after an extremely narrow election victory, extending the PAN's hold on the presidency.

After being declared winner of the 2006 election by a margin of 0.6% over Andrés Manuel López Obrador, President Felipe Calderón deployed the military against the drug cartels. From 2007 the country's powerful trafficking organisations fought one another and the state, and the conflict has left over 120,000 dead and tens of thousands missing, with roughly 127,000 deaths attributed to trafficking violence since 2006.

Established in March 2003, the institute promotes and protects Mexico's indigenous languages through the General Law on the Linguistic Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which recognises them de jure as national languages equal in status to Spanish. The federal government recognises 68 linguistic groups and 364 varieties, spoken by an estimated 8.3 million citizens in 2015.

In 2002 Mexico had the second fastest rate of deforestation in the world after Brazil, despite hosting 10–12% of global biodiversity. Its 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index score of 6.82 ranked it 63rd of 172 countries, and a 2022 report noted environmental laws remained unenforced in rural regions.

Fox's National Action Party victory on 2 July marked the first opposition win in a presidential race since the party's 1929 predecessor was founded. He took office on 1 December 2000.

Ongoing economic and social concerns include low real wages, underemployment for a large segment of the population, inequitable income distribution and few advancement opportunities for the largely indigenous population of the impoverished southern states.

The EZLN began an armed uprising against the federal government on 1 January 1994, capturing towns and drawing world attention. The armed conflict was short-lived and continued as a non-violent opposition movement against neoliberalism and globalisation, leading to the 1996 San Andrés Accords granting autonomy and rights to indigenous peoples.

The North American Free Trade Agreement entered into force on 1 January 1994, tying Mexico into a continental free-trade bloc with the United States and Canada and removing most tariffs over the following years. It capped Salinas's neoliberal reforms, which fixed the exchange rate, controlled inflation and opened Mexico to foreign investment; trade integration reshaped the economy, with trade with the US and Canada accounting for almost half of Mexico's exports by 2006. On the same day, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation launched an armed uprising in Chiapas.

Mexico joined the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in 1994 and remained its only Latin American member until Chile gained full membership in 2010. Membership signalled its integration into the club of developed economies.

Salinas left his successor Ernesto Zedillo, chosen after the assassination of PRI candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio, to handle the Mexican peso crisis, which required a $50 billion IMF bailout. Zedillo's macroeconomic reforms restored stability and growth peaked at 7% by 1999.

In 1992 Article 2 was amended to define Mexico as a pluricultural country and to emphasise the role of indigenous Mexicans, breaking with decades of state-promoted mestizaje ideology. The new framework preceded the Zapatista challenge and the 1996 San Andrés Accords.

Telmex, previously a government telecommunications monopoly, was privatised in 1990 as part of the neoliberal programme. By 2006 it had expanded operations to Colombia, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and the United States.

Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas broke with the PRI to challenge Salinas in 1988, and results showing the narrowest winning margin ever were widely regarded as fraudulent, prompting protests in Mexico City over the stolen election. Salinas was sworn in that December; in 1990 Mario Vargas Llosa still called the PRI 'the perfect dictatorship', but its hegemony faced major challenges.

The 19 September quake destroyed or damaged thousands of buildings in the capital. Estimates of the death toll vary widely, from official figures near 10,000 to unofficial estimates several times higher, and the disaster spurred a new generation of civic organising.

Oil exports accounted for 62% of total exports in 1980 but only 7% by 2000, as manufacturing took over. Mexico became the second-largest exporter of electronics to the United States, with electronics exports growing 73% between 2002 and 2012.

In the 1980s the first cracks appeared in the PRI's political dominance when the PAN candidate was elected governor of Baja California. The breakthrough marked the beginning of genuine electoral competition at state level.

Though capable of manufacturing nuclear weapons, Mexico abandoned the option with the Treaty of Tlatelolco in 1968, pledging to use nuclear technology only for peaceful purposes. The commitment anchored its standing as a proponent of regional non-proliferation.

Weeks of demonstrations in Mexico City before the 1968 Summer Olympics culminated on 2 October in the Tlatelolco massacre, when troops and police opened fire on protesters in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas; estimates of the death toll vary widely, from 300 to 800, and no official figure has been published. Mexico City became the first Latin American city to host the Olympic Games, but PRI rule turned increasingly authoritarian in the ensuing Mexican Dirty War.

More than 16 million Mexicans migrated to the United States between 1965 and 2015, by far the top destination for temporary and permanent migration. By 2019 an estimated 11.7 million Mexicans lived abroad, and their remittances became a leading source of foreign income.

The Mexican Academy of Sciences was created in 1959 to coordinate scientific efforts between academics. Mexico was ranked 58th in the Global Innovation Index in 2025.

With the election of Alemán in 1946, the first civilian president of the post-revolutionary period, Mexico embarked on a programme of industrialisation and urbanisation known as the Mexican miracle. Rapid growth from the 1940s to the 1970s was accompanied by increased inequality between urban and rural areas.

The moderate presidency of Ávila Camacho saw relations with the United States improve markedly, with Mexico a significant ally during the Second World War. The wartime rapprochement laid the groundwork for post-war industrial development.

The 18 March expropriation led to the creation of the state oil company Pemex and prompted a temporary boycott by affected foreign firms. The date is still marked as a national holiday.

Since the 1930s the Estrada Doctrine has served as a crucial complement to Mexico's foreign policy principles. Mexico has also sought reform of the UN Security Council since the 1990s with a group of states informally known as the Coffee Club, and contributed over $40 million to the UN regular budget in 2008.

Having barely doubled through the 19th century and standing at just over 13 million in 1900, Mexico's population grew at over 3% a year between 1950 and 1980, doubling in twenty years. It rose from 70 million in 1982 to 123.5 million in 2017 and exceeded 134 million by 2026, while life expectancy climbed from 36 years in 1895 to 75 in 2020.