México

How is the land laid out?

México's main piece is shaped like a ram's horn in its blowing position (thick end up). Attached narrowly in the northwest is the skinny peninsula of Baja California, separated from the rest by the Gulf of California, also known as the Sea of Cortéz. At the head of the gulf is the mouth of the Colorado River¹ which crosses the harsh Sonoran Desert. The Río Grande or Río Bravo del Norte² forms the eastern edge of the end of the 'horn'.

At the other end of the horn, its 'mouth piece' is the Yucatán Peninsula, a low scrubby limestone plateau, which separates the Gulf of México from the Caribbean Sea.

Most of the nation is dominated by two mountain ranges, the Western³ and Eastern⁴ Sierra Madre⁵ and the plateaus between them. In the center of the intermontane highlands is the Valley of México. Some of the peaks, notably Orizaba, Popocatépetl and Iztacchíhuatl, reach over 5,000 meters. The northern tablelands are arid and the south--squeezed between the two ranges--rugged.

South of the end of this triple feature is the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, where the 'horn' is pinched. Between the end of the mountains and the isthmus are the Southern(⁶ Sierra Madre, and beyond the isthmus this range continues under other names. Their highest peak is a volcano on the Chiapas/ Guatemala border, Tacaná, which exceeds 4,000 meters.

Beyond the Eastern Sierra Madre is a narrow plain along the Gulf of Mexico.

Who lives there?

The majority speak Spanish and almost everyone is a Roman Catholic Christian. There is one city with a population over ten million: the capital, México City. For other cities see the Table of Mexican Cities.

Baja California and Baja California Sur
Sonora, Sinaloa, Nayarit, Zacatecas, Jalisco, Durango and Aguascalientes
Chihuahua
Tamaulipas and Nuevo León
Coahuila
Veracruz and San Luis Potosí states
Hidalgo, Tlaxcala, México, Queretaro, Morelos, Federal District, Michoácan, Guanajuato and Colima (including the Revillaggedo Islands)
Oaxaco, Guerrero, Pueblo, Tabasco, Campeche, Chiapas, Yucatán and Quintano Roo

Footnotes

1. Colorado translates from Spanish as 'red'; it is North America's ninth longest river.
2. Río translates from Spanish as 'river'; grande translates from Spanish as 'big'; bravo translates from Spanish as 'great'; del norte translates from Spanish as 'northern'. The Río Grande is North America's fifth longest river.
3. Occidental in Spanish.
4. Oriental in Spanish.
5. Translates as 'Mother Range' from Spanish.
6. del Sur in Spanish.
7. Ectepec and Nezahualcóyotl, suburbs of México City; Tijuana, part of the San Diego metropolitan area; and Zapopan, a suburb of Guadalajara, also have more than a million people. The MacAllen-Reynosa and the Matamoros-Brownsville metropolitan areas that straddle the Tamaulipas/ Texas border have more than a million residents. The San Luis Potosí metropolitan area, centered on the state capital, also has a million metropolitan residents as does the Torreón metropolitan area at the Coahuilla/ Durango border. Querétaro recently topped the million metropolitan mark.
8. Translates from Spanish as 'New Lion', León being a former nation, which is now part of Spain.