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The United Mexican States (Spanish: Estados Unidos Mexicanos (help·info)), generally known as Mexico (Spanish: México (help·info)) is a country located in North America, bordered at the north by the United States, and at the south by Guatemala and Belize, in Central America. It is the northernmost and westernmost country in Latin America, and also the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world.

The site of advanced Mesoamerican or Amerindian civilizations, the land that currently makes up Mexico existed under Spanish rule for three centuries before achieving independence early in the 19th century. The first century of independence was tumultuous, culminating in the decade-long Mexican Revolution, followed by roughly seventy years of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

A devaluation of the peso in late 1994 threw Mexico into economic turmoil, triggering the worst recession in over half a century. The nation continues to make an impressive recovery. Ongoing economic and social concerns include low real wages, underemployment for a large segment of the population, inequitable income distribution, and few advancement opportunities for the largely Amerindian population in the impoverished southern states. Elections held in July 2000 marked the first time since the 1910 Mexican Revolution that the opposition defeated the (PRI) and Vicente Fox of the National Action Party (PAN) was sworn in as President on 1 December 2000.

Mexico is a powerful and influential neighbor of the United States, in terms of trade, culture, diplomacy, with a history of emigration of Mexicans into the U.S. since the early 1900's.

History

For almost 3,000 years, Mexico was the site of several advanced Amerindian civilizations, the Mesoamerican cultures, such as the Olmec, the Maya and the Aztecs. The arrival of the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés defeated the Aztecs 1521, marking the beginning of the 300 year-long colonial period of Mexico as New Spain.

On September 16, 1810, the independence from Spain was declared, by Miguel Hidalgo in the small town of Dolores, causing a long war that eventually led to independence in 1821 and the creation of the First Mexican Empire with Agustín de Iturbide being the first and only emperor. In 1824 the republic was proclaimed Guadalupe Victoria as its first President. During the first decades of its independence, Antonio López de Santa Anna was the strong man of Mexican politics, and on-and-off dictator. After Santa Anna revoked the federal constitution, Texas declared its independence, which they managed to obtain in 1836. The annexation of Texas by the United States created a border dispute, that woud cause the Mexican-American War. This war resulted in a Mexican defeat. In the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848 Mexico lost one third of its area to the United States.

Read more at Wikipedia.org