Mexico

Mexico fills the southern end of North America. The United States lies to the north, Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; the Pacific and the Gulf of California wash its western shores, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean its eastern ones. With 1,972,550 square kilometres and roughly 131 million people, it is the most populous Spanish-speaking country on earth. Mexico City is both capital and largest city.

The capital sits 2,240 metres up in the Valley of Mexico, on the site of Tenochtitlan, the island city the Mexica founded around 1325 in Lake Texcoco. Its historic centre and the canals of Xochimilco have been a World Heritage Site since 1987. About 40 kilometres away stands Teotihuacan, whose Pyramids of the Sun and Moon belonged to the largest city in the Americas during the first centuries AD.

To the southeast the flat Yucatán Peninsula juts into the sea. Its Caribbean shore holds Cancún, Playa del Carmen and the cliff-top ruins of Tulum, with the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, the second-longest reef system in the world, just offshore. Inland lie the stepped pyramid of Chichén Itzá, the white city of Mérida and thousands of cenotes: natural wells that opened where limestone collapsed over groundwater.

The heart of the country is a high plateau framed by the Sierra Madre ranges and crossed by a belt of volcanoes. Here rises Pico de Orizaba, at 5,636 metres the country's highest point and the tallest volcano in North America, along with the snow-capped Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl near the capital. Further south are Oaxaca and the ancient site of Monte Albán, and in the Chiapas forest the ruins of Palenque.

Mexico counts 36 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, more than any other country in the Americas, among them the colourful silver towns of Guanajuato and San Miguel de Allende. Traditional Mexican cuisine joined UNESCO's intangible heritage list in 2010 and the Day of the Dead in 2008. On the Pacific, Puerto Vallarta curves around the Bay of Banderas.

Most trips work best in the dry season, December to May. Rain falls from June to mid-October, and hurricane season on both coasts runs from June to November. The currency is the Mexican peso, and the overall price level is about 54% of that in the United States. The busiest airports are in Mexico City and Cancún.[1,2,10,19,11,18,20,21,23,28,29,30,33,7,8,9,34,35,41,4,37,39,42,46,40,3,6,53,54,49,50]Source1. Mexico · Wikipedia2. Geography of Mexico · Wikipedia10. Mexico City · Wikipedia19. Tenochtitlan · Wikipedia11. Historic center of Mexico City · Wikipedia18. Xochimilco · Wikipedia20. Teotihuacan · Wikipedia21. Cancún · Wikipedia23. Tulum · Wikipedia28. Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System · Wikipedia29. Chichen Itza · Wikipedia30. Mérida, Yucatán · Wikipedia33. Cenote · Wikipedia7. Pico de Orizaba · Wikipedia8. Popocatépetl · Wikipedia9. Iztaccihuatl · Wikipedia34. Oaxaca City · Wikipedia35. Monte Albán · Wikipedia41. Palenque · Wikipedia4. Mexico — World Heritage properties · UNESCO World Heritage Centre37. Guanajuato (city) · Wikipedia39. San Miguel de Allende · Wikipedia42. Mexican cuisine · Wikipedia46. Day of the Dead · Wikipedia40. Puerto Vallarta · Wikipedia3. Climate of Mexico · Wikipedia6. Mexican peso · Wikipedia53. PPP conversion factor, GDP (LCU per international $) — Mexico · World Bank54. Official exchange rate (LCU per US$, period average) — Mexico · World Bank49. Mexico City International Airport · Wikipedia50. Cancún International Airport · Wikipedia