Mexico

Mexico City serves as the political, cultural and economic heart of Mexico, positioned in North America. As the seat of government and often the most populous city, it concentrates the country's main institutions, universities and cultural landmarks. Beyond the capital, major cities include Guadalajara, Monterrey, Puebla — each a hub of regional culture, economy and history. Mexico City was built on the ruins of Tenochtitlán — the Aztec capital destroyed by Hernán Cortés in 1521 — on an island in Lake Texcoco that was gradually drained, creating a metropolitan area of 21 million people on unstable lake bed sediment that causes the ground to sink up to 30 centimetres per year and its buildings to tilt visibly.

With a population of approximately 130M, Mexico is a vibrant society with a rich mix of traditions and communities. The official language is Spanish, which reflects the country's cultural heritage and connects it with a wide international community. Internationally, Mexico is reached via the dialling code +52. Mexican identity fuses indigenous (Aztec, Maya, Zapotec, and 60 other peoples), Spanish, and mestizo (mixed) heritages in a cultural synthesis expressed in the muralism of Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco — monumental paintings depicting Mexican history commissioned for public buildings in a post-revolutionary project to create national identity through art visible to citizens who couldn't read.

Mexico spans 1,964,375 km², in the North America subregion of Americas. Geographically centred around 23.0°N, 102.0°W, the country offers a diverse range of landscapes shaped by its location, climate and geology. Road traffic follows the right-hand rule, in line with surrounding Americas convention.

The official currency is the Mexican peso ($), used for everyday transactions and commerce throughout the country. Mexico's economy is shaped by its geography, natural resources and trade relationships. Business and daily life operate under UTC-08:00, aligning the country with its regional neighbours.

The emblematic dish of Mexico is Mole Poblano. Mexican cuisine received UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage recognition in 2010 as the first cuisine so honoured — the argument being that it represents not just recipes but a complete knowledge system including agriculture, preparation techniques, and social functions evolved over 3,000 years from pre-Columbian traditions that combined chilli peppers, chocolate, vanilla, and corn in combinations unknown to the rest of the world.

Football holds a special place in the heart of Mexico's national identity. Football is Mexico's secular religion, with El Tri's qualification for eight consecutive World Cup tournaments making Mexico the second-most consistent World Cup nation — but Lucha Libre, the masked wrestling tradition, functions as Mexico's true pop-cultural sport, its wrestlers (luchadores) maintaining secret identities behind their masks in a theatrical tradition as ingrained as the Aztec ritual combat it loosely descends from.

The highest point in Mexico is Pico de Orizaba, rising to 5,636 metres above sea level. The Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in the mountains of Michoacán hosts 300 million butterflies arriving each November from Canada and the United States in a migration of 4,000 kilometres to cluster on the oyamel fir trees in densities so high they bend branches under their weight — an annual return to precise forest locations using a navigational system that scientists still do not fully understand.