Keyguide Mexico [antikvár]

Mexico is difficult to encapsulate. The regional differences are huge. Manic Mexico City is a world away from the serenity ofthe country's quieter spots, and underlying everything is the heavy weight of history. The growth of regional powers such as the Olmecs was the precursor for the Maya in the southeast and the Aztecs in the Central Highlands. The Spanish Conquest exploited regional differences to impose its own beliefs and traditions on the population, while the more recent cultural invasion from north of the border, helped by the free trade agreement, has added another dimension to this already complicated country. GEOGRAPHY Mexico is the second-largest country in Latin America (after Brazil), covering an area of just under 2 million sq km (772,000sq miles), making it four times the size of France and roughly a quarter the size of continental USA, with which it has a frontier of 2,400km (1,490 miles). The land mass consists of a plateau flanked by ranges of mountains roughly paralleling the coasts. The northern plateau is low, arid and thinly populated; it takes up 40 percent of the total area of Mexico, but holds only 19 percent of its people. Farther south, the level rises considerably; this southern central plateau is crossed by the volcanic cones of Orizaba (5,760m/18,898ft), Popocatepetl (5,452m/17888ft), IztaccihuatI (5,286m/17343ft), Nevado deToluca (4,583m/15,036ft), Matlalcueyetl or La Malinche (4,461 m/14,636ft), and Cofre de Perote (4,282m/14,049ft).This mountainous southern end of the plateau, the heart of Mexico, covers only 14 percent of the area of the country, but holds nearly half of its people, including the 20 or so million inhabitants of Mexico City. Geographically, North America may be said to come to an end in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. South of the Isthmus the land rises again into the thinly populated highlands of Chiapas. CLIMATE_ Climate and vegetation depend upon altitude. The tierra caliente (hot land) takes in the coastlands and plateau lands below 750m (2,460ft).The tierra templada, or temperate land, lies at 750m-2,000m (2,460ft-6,560ft). The tierra fría, or cold land, is from 2,000m (6,560ft) upwards. Above the tree line at 4,000m (13,125ft) are páramos (high moorlands). The climate of the inland highlands is mostly mild, but with sharp changes of temperature between day and night, sunshine and shade. Generally, winter is the dry season and summer the wet season. There are only two areas where rain falls year round: south ofTampico along the lower slopes of the Sierra Madre Oriental and across the Isthmus ofTehuantepec into Tabasco state; and along the Pacific coast of the state of Chiapas. These