Officially UNITED MEXICAN STATES, Spanish M¨¦XICO, or ESTADOS UNIDOS MEXICANOS, also spelled M¨¦JICO, country of North America. Sharing a common border throughout its northern extent with the United States, the country is bounded on the west and south by the Pacific Ocean, to the east by the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, and on the southeast by Guatemala and Belize.

Roughly triangular in shape, Mexico covers an area of 756,066 square miles (1,958,201 square kilometres). While it is more than 1,850 miles (3,000 kilometres) across the country from northwest to southeast, the width varies from less than 135 miles at the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to more than 1,200 miles in the north.

Mexico has a vast wealth of mineral resources, a limited amount of agricultural land, and a rapidly growing population. More than half of the people live in the central core, while vast areas of the arid north and the tropical south are sparsely settled. The long-held stereotype of Mexico as a country where life is slow-paced and the population consists mostly of subsistence farmers has little truth. Petroleum and tourism have come to dominate the economy, and industrialization is increasing in many parts of the country. Internal migration has caused urban centres to grow dramatically, and more than two-thirds of Mexicans now live in cities; in population, Mexico City, the capital, is the largest city in the world (though the Mexico City metropolitan area ranks third in population when compared to other metropolitan areas).

Despite impressive social and economic gains made during the 1960s and '70s, most Mexicans remain poor. Beginning in the 1980s the country was wracked by severe inflation and an enormous foreign debt. These growing pains of modernization are in sharp counterpoint to the traditional life-styles that prevail in the more isolated rural areas. Small communal villages remain, where Indian peasants live much as did their ancestors. The cultural remnants of great Indian civilizations, such as those at Chich¨¦n Itz¨¢ or Tulum, provide a contrast to colonial towns like Taxco or Quer¨¦taro. In turn, these towns appear as historical relics when compared to the modern metropolis of Mexico City. It is this tremendous cultural and economic diversity, distributed over an enormously complex and varied physical environment, that gives Mexico its character.