LOCATION:

North America, bordering the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, between Belize and the US and bordering the North Pacific Ocean, between Guatemala and the US

AREA:

total: 1,972,550 sq km
land: 1,923,040 sq km
water: 49,510 sq km
Area - comparative:
  
slightly less than three times the size of Texas

POPULATION:

106,202,903

(July 2005 est.)

AGE STRUCTURE:

0-14 years: 31.1%
(male 16,844,400/female 16,159,511)
 
15-64 years: 63.3%
(male 32,521,043/female 34,704,093)

65 years and over: 5.6%
 (male 2,715,010/female 3,258,846)

(2005 est.)

MEDIAN AGE:

tomale: 24.04 years
female: 25.85 years

 (2005 est.)
tal: 24.93 years

POPULATION GROWTH:

1.17%

 (2005 est.)

INFANT MORTALITY RATE:

total: 20.91 deaths/1,000 live births
male: 22.85 deaths/1,000 live births
female: 18.88 deaths/1,000 live births

(2005 est)

HIV/AIDS-ADULT PREVALENCE RATE:

0.2%

(World Fact Book estimates 0.3 %)

HIV/AIDS- PEOPLE LIVING WITH HIV/AIDS :

160,000

low estimate:
11,000

high estimate:
40,000

HIV/AIDS-DEATH

5,000

low estimate:
4,500

high estimate:
10,000

ETHNIC GROUPS:

mestizo (Amerindian-Spanish) 60%, Amerindian or predominantly Amerindian 30%,
white 9%,
other 1%

RELIGIONS:

nominally Roman Catholic 89%, Protestant 6%,
other 5%

LANGUAGES:

Spanish, various Mayan, Nahuatl, and other regional indigenous languages

LITERACY:

definition: age 15 and over can read and write
 
total population: 92.2%
male: 94%
female: 90.5%

(2003 est.)

GOVERNMENT TYPE:

federal republic

CAPITAL:

Mexico (Distrito Federal)

ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISIONS:

31 states (estados, singular - estado) and 1 federal district* (distrito federal); Aguascalientes, Baja California, Baja California Sur, Campeche, Chiapas, Chihuahua, Coahuila de Zaragoza, Colima, Distrito Federal*, Durango, Guanajuato, Guerrero, Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mexico, Michoacan de Ocampo, Morelos, Nayarit, Nuevo Leon, Oaxaca, Puebla, Queretaro de Arteaga, Quintana Roo, San Luis Potosi, Sinaloa, Sonora, Tabasco, Tamaulipas, Tlaxcala, Veracruz-Llave, Yucatan, Zacatecas

INDEPENDENCE:

16 September 1810 (from Spain)

ECONOMY:

Mexico has a free market economy that recently entered the trillion dollar class. It contains a mixture of modern and outmoded industry and agriculture, increasingly dominated by the private sector. Recent administrations have expanded competition in seaports, railroads, telecommunications, electricity generation, natural gas distribution, and airports. Per capita income is one-fourth that of the US; income distribution remains highly unequal. Trade with the US and Canada has tripled since the implementation of NAFTA in 1994. Mexico has 12 free trade agreements with over 40 countries including, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, the European Free Trade Area, and Japan, putting more than 90% of trade under free trade agreements. The government is cognizant of the need to upgrade infrastructure, modernize the tax system and labor laws, and provide incentives to invest in the energy sector, but progress is slow.

GDP:

purchasing power parity - $1.006 trillion

 (2004 est.)

POPULATION BELOW POVERT LINE:

40%

 (2003 est.)

INFLATION RATE:

5.4%

 (2004 est.)

UNEMPLOYMENT:

3.2% plus underemployment of perhaps 25%

(2004 est.)

EXCHANGE RATES:

Mexican pesos per US dollar - 11.3139 (2004),
10.789 (2003),
9.656 (2002),
9.3423 (2001),
9.4556 (2000)

ILLICIT DRUGS:

illicit cultivation of opium poppy (cultivation in 2001 - 4,400 hectares; potential heroin production - 7 metric tons) and of cannabis (in 2001 - 4,100 hectares); government eradication efforts have been key in keeping illicit crop levels low; major supplier of heroin and largest foreign supplier of marijuana and methamphetamine to the US market; continues as the primary transshipment country for US-bound cocaine from South America, accounting for about 70 percent of estimated annual cocaine movement to the US; major drug syndicates control majority of drug trafficking throughout the country; producer and distributor of ecstasy; significant money-laundering center