ON APRIL 20, 2010, an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the northern Gulf of Mexico killed 11 workers, injured 17 others, and initiated the most disastrous oil spill in U.S. history. For the next 86 days, oil gushed into the Gulf. This oil spill is an example of a complex problem with […]

The same forces that have shaped the other North American deserts by creating the geologically stretched Basin and Range Province also forged the 280,000-square-mile (450,616 sq km) Chihuahuan Desert. This great desert plain punctuated with a patterned scattering of northsouth trending mountains starts in the shadow of the massive Sierra Madre in Mexico, runs north […]

T he towering, bristling, water-hoarding saguaro cactus cluster thickly across the desert corrugations of Saguaro National Monument in Arizona, brooding over a mystery. The defining plant of the Sonoran Desert, the largest of the saguaro are 200 years old, 50 feet high (15.24 m), and weigh eight tons. They dominate the park that occupies two […]

You'll be hard-pressed to find a blizzard or a tornado in Mexico. Unlike its neighbours to the north, Mexico gets few of the wild temperature swings that play out across the mid-latitudes. Hurricanes are not to be taken lightly in Mexico, however: they can cause major destruction along the east-facing coastlines of the Gulf of […]

A HUMAN PERSPECTIVE Quetzalcoatl was a god worshiped by the Toltec and Aztec peoples of Mexico and Central America. According to Native American legend, Quetzalcoatl traveled east across the sea. It was said that he would return some day, bringing peace. One day, messengers brought Montezuma, the Aztec emperor, news that strangers had arrived from […]

MEXICO CITY IS THE capital of the country of MEXICO. The city is located in the Valley of Mexico on the central Mexican plateau. The core of the city is comprised of the Federal District. However, the Mexico City metropolitan area goes well beyond the boundaries of the Federal District into the surrounding states. With […]

Area 761,605 square mi (1,972,550 square km) Population 125.4 million 2014 Capital Mexico City Highest Point 18,700 ft (5,700 m) Lowest Point -33 ft (-10 m) GDP $1.283 trillion 2014 Primary Natural Resources petroleum, silver, copper, gold. OFFICIALLY KNOWN AS the Estados Unidos Mexicanos (United Mexican States), Mexico is a country in North America. It […]