The Geography of Mexico

Podcast Transcript

Just south of the United States and north of Guatemala is Mexico, a fact which I’m sure all of you know.

However, most people don’t know that much about Mexico. There are caricatures of Mexico, and many people are familiar with some of the tourist areas, but that’s about it.

In reality, Mexico is one of the world’s largest countries, and its unique geography has influenced its history and economy.

Learn more about Mexico’s physical, cultural, and economic geography on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

I’ll start this episode by talking about Mexico generally before getting to the details about specific parts of the country.

I’ll start with the size of Mexico. Mexico is a pretty big country, and most people don’t realize just how big it is.

Let’s begin by looking at the big picture and how Mexico compares to other countries.

In terms of land area, Mexico is the 13th largest country in the world, with a total area of 1,964,375 square kilometers or 758,449 square miles. In size, it falls between Saudi Arabia, another deceptively large country, and Indonesia.

Mexico is big enough that you could fit 30 different European countries inside of it and still have room to spare.

In terms of population, Mexico is also among the largest countries in the world. With a population of almost 129 million people, it is the 11th most populous country, behind Russia and ahead of Ethiopia.

This makes Mexico the largest Spanish-speaking country in the world by a wide margin. It has over twice the number of Spanish speakers of second-largest Spanish-speaking country, which is, surprisingly, the United States. After that, Colombia and Spain would follow.

Economically, Mexico is a solidly middle-class country. This surprises most Americans who think of Mexico as poor, but taken globally, Mexico is far from the bottom. It ranks 65th in terms of GDP per capita at a rate of $15,249 per person. This places it right at the borderline of the top third of countries.

It is just below Chile and Bulgaria and just above Russia and Malaysia.

My point in mentioning this is that Mexico is often overshadowed by its larger and richer neighbor to the north so it often doesn’t get the recognition it deserves.

In the northwest is the Baja Peninsula. In the southeast is the Yucatan Peninsula. In the center is the majority of the country, which is a funnel-shaped

In terms of geology, almost all of Mexico lies on the North American tectonic plate along with the United States and Canada. The Caribbean plate lies just south of the Mexican border with Guatemala.

The only part of the country that isn’t part of the North American plate is the Baja Peninsula. The peninsula is part of the Pacific Plate. It is very slowly moving past the North American plate. This is part of the same tectonic plate that southern California is a part of.

At some point, millions of years from now, the Baja Peninsula, along with Southern California, will become an island.

Baja is very dry and mountainous. The Gulf of California, which is located between Baja and the Mexican mainland, is a warm protected area which is a popular breeding ground for whales.

The Mexican mainland, which is funnel shaped part that comprises the majority of the country is also very mountainous. In fact, Mexico is one of the most mountainous countries in the world. The percentage of Mexico that is mountainous is on par with Afghanistan.

There are several major mountain ranges in Mexico. The Sierra Madre Occidental runs parallel to the Pacific Coast. The Sierra Madre Oriental is o the other side of the country, running roughly parallel with the coast along the Gulf of Mexico.

Finally, the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt range runs roughly in an east-west direction in the south.

The land in between these three ranges isn’t a flat plain like you see between other mountain ranges. It, too, is mountainous and is known as the Mexican Plateau. It extends from the US border to the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt.

It is dry and hot in the north and has an average elevation of 1,825 meters or 5,988 feet. The population density is low in the north but extremely dense to the south in Central Mexico.

While there are a few large cities in the north, more on that in a bit, by far the densest center of population lies in central Mexico. This is the region that houses the capital of Mexico City.

Mexico City is the largest city in North America, and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the world, behind Tokyo, Delhi, Shanghai, and Sao Palo.

Mexico City is not just the largest city on the continent, but it is also the oldest city if you consider that the origin of the city pre-dates the European arrival as it was the capital of the Aztec Empire.

The fact that Mexico is so mountainous and so much of it is uninhabitable has led it to become a very urban country. Mexico has ten cities with a population of over one million people. To put that into perspective, the United States only had nine.

The reason why this part of the Mexican Plateau is so densely populated is because of the rich volcanic soil and elevation provides a cooler climate.

Another anomalous fact about Mexico is that most of the population lives inland, not on the coast. The largest coastal city, by far, is Tiajuana, which has a population of approximately 1.6 million people.

While it does lie on the Pacific Ocean, it really isn’t a coastal city so much as it is a border city that just happens to be on the coast. Tiajuana was founded because it was right across the border from San Diego. It wasn’t much of a city before the 20th century. Despite having a beach, it has no major shipping port.

The other major city on the US border is Juárez. Juárez is a city of 1.5 million people that lies just opposite the City of El Paso, Texas. As with Tijuana, the city exploded in the 20th century as it was able to take advantage of economic ties with the United States.

Other than Tijuana, Acapulco is the only other major city on the Pacific coast, and it is the 27th largest city in Mexico.

Acapulco is one of the cities that lies on a very narrow Pacific coastal plain that sits between the Sierra Madre Occidental and the sea.

Over on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, there is a similar story. North of the Yucatan Peninsula, the two largest cities on the coast are Veracruz and Tampico. Veracruz is the 33rd largest city, and Tampico is the 63rd largest.

An interesting fact about Veracruz. Mexico has been invaded multiple times, and most of those invasions have all come through Veracruz.

The Gulf Coastal Plain is the largest plain in Mexico. It extends along the length of Mexico’s Gulf Coast and flows into the Yucatan.

You don’t see huge cities on the East Coast until you get to the Yucatan Peninsula.

The Yucatan is very different from the rest of Mexico. The Yucatan is relatively flat, gets plenty of rainfall, and is covered in a lush forest, as opposed to most of the rest of the country, which is dry and elevated.

One of the defining characteristics of the Yucatan is the limestone that makes up most of the rock. This limestone is pockmarked with over 10,000 sinkholes known as cenotes.

The cenotes expose groundwater below the surface. These cenotes served as sources of fresh water for the Maya who lived there for centuries.

Because the water is groundwater and isn’t exposed to the atmosphere, it is much colder than any surface water, fresh or salt, than can be found in the region.

If you look at a map, you can see a very strong concentration of centoes in an arc in the northern part of the Yucatan. This arc corresponds to the location of the Chicxulub crater that was formed when a meteo hit the Earth 66 million years ago and was believed to be responsible for killing the dinosaurs.

The Yucatan is home to the largest city on the Gulf of Mexico, Cancun.

Cancun and much of the costal area in the Yucatan has become a popular tourist destination and much of what foreigners think of Mexico comes from people visiting Cancun and the surrounding region.

There are several geographical highlights within Mexico that are worth mentioning.

Copper Canyon is one of the world’s largest canyons, located in the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains in the state of Chihuahua. This vast canyon system is actually a series of six interconnected canyons and is longer and deeper than the Grand Canyon in the United States.

Another notable canyon is Sumidero Canyon which is located in the south of the country in the state of Chiapas. The canyon is a dramatic geological formation carved by the Grijalva River over millions of years. The canyon features towering vertical walls that rise up to 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) above the river, creating a breathtaking and imposing landscape.

The Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, located in the states of Michoacán and Estado de México, is a UNESCO World Heritage site known for hosting one of the world’s most remarkable natural phenomena: the annual migration of millions of monarch butterflies.

Each year, these butterflies travel up to 3,000 miles from Canada and the United States to overwinter in the oyamel fir forests of this reserve. The spectacle of millions of butterflies clustering on tree branches, draws visitors and researchers from around the world.

There are also, of course, volcanoes.

The Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt has many active and inactive volcanoes. Two of the most famous and iconic are Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl. Popocatépetl, an active stratovolcano, and Iztaccíhuatl, a dormant volcano with a silhouette resembling a sleeping woman, are steeped in Aztec mythology, symbolizing the tragic tale of two lovers.

Of course, we can’t forget Parícutin. I’ve previously done an entire episode on Parícutin, but it is a volcano that appeared out of nowhere in 1943 and now stands 2,800 meters or 9,200 feet tall.

Where there are volcanoes, there are also earthquakes. Mexico has had its share of major, devastating earthquakes over the years.

The main earthquake belt extends along the tectonic plate boundary off the coast of Baja and across the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt.

There have been dozens of major earthquakes over the last century that have resulted in the deaths of thousands of people.

There has been one very strange coincidence regarding earthquakes in Mexico over the last 40 years. The date of September 19.

On September 19, 1985, a magnitude 8.1 earthquake off the coast devastated Mexico City, causing thousands of deaths and significant damage to infrastructure.

On September 19, 2017, a magnitude 7.1 struck near the town of Raboso in the state of Puebla, killing hundreds of people.

Finally, on September 19, 2022, a magnitude 7.6 earthquake struck off the coast of the state of Michoacán, again causing serious damage.

Many people believe that September 19 has become a cursed day in the country.

Mexico is a very big, geographically diverse country. Its size is often overlooked because of its neighbors, but it is one of the largest countries on Earth, and one of the most culturally significant countries in the Spanish speaking world.