The largest cities in Mexico

Modern Mexico is an extremely urbanized country with huge and no less large-scale problems within the settlements. Cities with a population of more than a million people in the country only ten. Another ten - with a population of 700 to 950 thousand. However, it should be borne in mind that this is only official statistics, which, with an imperfect system of state administration, may not be quite accurate. Let's look at the big cities of Mexico.

Capital

Mexico City is the capital and at the same time the largest city in the country. The majority of the population of this metropolis speaks Spanish. Strictly speaking, when calculating the population of Mexico City use the term agglomeration, the number of which is about twenty million people.

The Mexican capital occupies the most important place in the state economic system and attracts people from all over the country. However, it is difficult to call a city comfortable for life - a large number of citizens live in conditions that are unsuitable for life, do not have access to the education system, and are under constant threat of attack in unsafe areas.

Other major cities in the country are significantly inferior in terms of the population of the capital, but are burdened by the same problems: security, lack of access to clean water, environmental and transport problems.

Big cities of Mexico: list

If the list of the largest cities in the country includes only those with a population of more than a million people, the list will consist of ten names:

• Mexico City;
• Ecotepec de Morelos (or simply Ecotepec);
• Tijuana;
• Puebla;
• Guadalajara;
• Ciudad Juarez;
• Leon;
• Zapopan;
• Monterrey;
• Nesaualcoitol.

The smallest of the cities with a million population is Nesaualkoyotl, which barely crosses the line in a million people. This city is located to the east of the Mexican capital. Its name translates as "hungry coyote," and the city's coat of arms is the head of this animal, painted in gold, with a gold necklace on its neck.

Another major city, Monterrey, is the center of the country's third largest metropolitan area, second only to Mexico City and Guadalajara. However, the city's population does not exceed one million one hundred thousand people. The settlement is located in the north of the country in relative proximity to the US border and is the largest in the northern regions of Mexico.

Guadalajara - a new city in the old place

Before being built in its current location, the city was moved five times from one place to another. For the first time it was laid in 1532 in the form of a small fortification to protect against the aggressive local population, which at that time still had the strength to resist the conquerors.

However, today the city has reached an incredible heyday and entered the top ten largest megacities of Latin America. Like other major cities in the US, Canada and Mexico, Guadalajara attracts migrants from all over the continent, and this creates an additional strain on social infrastructure. At the same time, the city is considered to be the "Mexican Silicon Valley", because there are concentrated enterprises for the production of electronics and software development.

Globalization and neoliberal reforms have led to significant economic growth in the city. The weakening of state control stimulated the growth of private investments in construction, the emergence of trade networks and attracted a large international business. However, the rapid growth of the economy went hand in hand and with the growth of social inequality, which was exacerbated during the nineties of the twentieth century.

Ethnic composition

Most residents of major cities in Mexico are the mestizo, the descendants of the local population and the European Hispanic conquerors. However, the local population did not completely dissolve in the waves of the new settlers and partially retained their identity. Among the descendants of the Indians, the most numerous group is the Nahua people, including the Aztec tribe well known to Europeans . Most of the Indian population lives in the metropolitan federal district. The total number of Indians around Mexico City is about 360 thousand people.

Problems of large cities

One of the main problems of large cities in Mexico is crime. The geographical location of the country, which serves as a kind of buffer between the poor or developing countries of South America and the United States, makes it extremely vulnerable to international organized crime, which is represented on the territory of the state by cartels of drug traffickers, traffickers of human organs and organizers of illegal migration to the United States.

The areas along the extended Mexican-American border are among the most criminal in the country. They represent a kind of transshipment point on the path of illegal migrants and adventurers of all sorts. The situation is further aggravated by the fact that the Mexican police not only are not able to effectively combat international crime, but it is often an integral part of it, contributes to the illicit trade in arms, drugs and the transfer of people to the United States.