Mexico
Mexico is the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world
and the second most-populous country in Latin America after
Portuguese-speaking Brazil. About 76% of the people live in urban
areas. Many Mexicans emigrate from rural areas that lack job
opportunities--such as the underdeveloped southern states and the
crowded central plateau--to the industrialized urban centers and the
developing areas along the U.S.-Mexico border. According to some
estimates, the population of the area around Mexico City is nearly
20 million, which would make it the largest concentration of
population in the Western Hemisphere. Cities bordering on the United
States--such as Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez--and cities in the
interior--such as Guadalajara, Monterrey, and Puebla--have undergone
sharp rises in population in recent years.
Mexico has made great strides in improving access to education and
literacy rates over the past few decades. According to a 2006 World
Bank report, enrollment at the primary level is nearly universal,
and more children are completing primary education. The average
number of years of schooling for the population 15 years old and
over was around eight years during the 2004-05 school year, a marked
improvement on a decade earlier--when it was 6.8 years--but low
compared with other Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD) countries. |
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Highly developed cultures, including those of the Olmecs, Mayas,
Toltecs, and Aztecs, existed long before the Spanish conquest.
Hernando Cortes conquered Mexico during the period 1519-21 and
founded a Spanish colony that lasted nearly 300 years.
Independence from Spain was proclaimed by Father Miguel Hidalgo on
September 16, 1810. Father Hidalgo's declaration of national
independence, known in Mexico as the "Grito de Dolores," launched a
decade-long struggle for independence from Spain. Prominent figures
in Mexico's war for independence were: Father Jose Maria Morelos;
Gen. Augustin de Iturbide, who defeated the Spaniards and ruled as
Mexican emperor from 1822-23; and Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana,
who went on to dominate Mexican politics from 1833 to 1855. An 1821
treaty recognized Mexican independence from Spain and called for a
constitutional monarchy. The planned monarchy failed; a republic was
proclaimed in December 1822 and established in 1824.
Throughout the rest of the 19th century, Mexico's government and
economy were shaped by contentious debates among liberals and
conservatives, republicans and monarchists, federalists and those
who favored centralized government. During the two presidential
terms of Benito Juarez (1858-71), Mexico experimented with modern
democratic and economic reforms. President Juarez' terms of office
and Mexico's early experience with democracy were interrupted by the
invasion in 1863 of French forces who imposed a monarchy on the
country in the form of Hapsburg archduke Ferdinand Maximilian of
Austria, who ruled as emperor. Liberal forces succeeded in
overthrowing, and executing, the emperor in 1867 after which Juarez
returned to office until his death in 1872. Following several weak
governments, the authoritarian Gen. Porfirio Diaz assumed office and
was president during most of the period between 1877 and 1911.
Mexico's severe social and economic problems erupted in a revolution
that lasted from 1910-20 and gave rise to the 1917 constitution.
Prominent leaders in this period--some of whom were rivals for
power--were Francisco Madero, Venustiano Carranza, Pancho Villa,
Alvaro Obregon, Victoriano Huerta, and Emiliano Zapata. The
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), formed in 1929 under a
different name, emerged from the chaos of revolution as a vehicle
for keeping political competition among a coalition of interests in
peaceful channels. For 71 years, Mexico's national government was
controlled by the PRI, which won every presidential race and most
gubernatorial races until the July 2000 presidential election of
Vicente Fox Quesada of the National Action Party (PAN), in what were
widely considered at the time the freest and fairest elections in
Mexico's history. President Fox completed his term on December 1,
2006, when Felipe Calderon assumed the presidency. |
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