Mexico Map

• The National Autonomous University of Mexico was officially established in 1910, and the university become one of the most important institutes of higher learning in Mexico. UNAM provides world class education in science, medicine, and engineering. Many scientific institutes and new institutes of higher learning, such as National Polytechnic Institute (founded in 1936), were established during the first half of the 20th century. Most of the new research institutes were created within UNAM. Twelve institutes were integrated into UNAM from 1929 to 1973. In 1959, the Mexican Academy of Sciences was created to coordinate scientific efforts between academics.

• In 1985 Rodolfo Neri Vela became the first Mexican citizen to enter space as part of the STS-61-B mission. In 1995 Mexican chemist Mario J. Molina shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Paul J. Crutzen, and F. Sherwood Rowland for their work in atmospheric chemistry, particularly concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone. Molina, an alumnus of UNAM, became the first Mexican citizen to win the Nobel Prize in science.

• In recent years, the biggest scientific project being developed in Mexico was the construction of the Large Millimeter Telescope (Gran Telescopio Milimétrico, GMT), the world's largest and most sensitive single-aperture telescope in its frequency range. It was designed to observe regions of space obscured by stellar dust.

• A large percentage of American branded appliances are actually of Mexican design and origin but sold under local brand names. In fact as of 2008 one out of every four consumer appliances sold in the United States was of Mexican origin. According to the World Bank, production of high-technology good represented 22% of Mexico's GDP in 2000 with the high tech sector gorwing by roughly 63% yearly. Since the 1990s Mexico has produced advanced automobiles for foreign companies (mainly BMW and Mercedes-Benz), and for domestic corporations such as Mastretta.

• According to a study by the Carnegie Endowment Mexico is among the developing countries well prepared for more rapid adoption of foreign technologies, largely because of relatively high levels of educational attainment and supportive infrastructure.

• Based on the information managed by the Scopus, a bibliographic database for science, the Spanish web portal SCImago places Mexico in the position 18 of the country scientific ranking with 82,792 publications, and in the position 34 if considering its value of 134 for the h-index. Both positions are computed for the period 1996-2.

• The electronics industry of Mexico has grown enormously within the last decade. In 2007 Mexico surpassed South Korea as the second largest manufacturer of televisions, and in 2008 Mexico surpassed China, South Korea and Taiwan to become the largest producer of smartphones in the world. There are almost half a million (451,000) students enrolled in electronics engineering programs with an additional 90,000 students graduating from electronics engineering and technical programs each year and Mexico had over half a million (580,000) certified IT professionals employed in 2007. In 2005, according to the World Bank, high-tech industrial production represented 19.6% of Mexico's economy. Mexico is also home to a large number of electronics Original design manufacturers (ODMs) and Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), companies which manufacture or design products on behalf of another company, for example Lanix, Mexico's largest electronics company manufacturers the Playstation 3 for Sony.

• Energy production in Mexico is managed by state-owned companies: the Federal Commission of Electricity and Pemex.

• Pemex, the public company in charge of exploration, extraction, transportation and marketing of crude oil and natural gas, as well as the refining and distribution of petroleum products and petrochemicals, is one of the largest companies in the world by revenue, making US $86 billion in sales a year. Mexico is the sixth-largest oil producer in the world, with 3.7 million barrels per day. In 1980 oil exports accounted for 61.6% of total exports; by 2000 it was only 7.3%.

• The largest hydro plant in Mexico is the 2,400 MW Manuel Moreno Torres Dam in Chicoasén, Chiapas, in the Grijalva river. This is the world's fourth most productive hydroelectric plant.

• The country's gross solar potential is estimated at 5kWh/m2 daily, which corresponds to 50 times national electricity generation. Currently, there is over 1 million square meters of solar thermal panels installed in Mexico, while in 2005, there were 115,000 square meters of solar PV (photo-voltaic). It is expected that in 2012 there will be 1,8 million square meters of installed solar thermal panels. As of 2010, Mexico generates approximately 23% of its power from renewable resources.

• The literature of Mexico has its antecedents in the literatures of the indigenous settlements of Mesoamerica. The most well known prehispanic poet is Netzahualcoyotl. Modern Mexican literature was influenced by the concepts of the Spanish colonialization of Mesoamerica. Outstanding colonial writers and poets include Juan Ruiz de Alarcón and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.

• In light of the various ethnicities that formed the Mexican people, José Vasconcelos in his publication La Raza Cósmica (The Cosmic Race) (1925) defined Mexico to be the melting pot of all races, biologically as well as culturally.

• Other writers include Alfonso Reyes, José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi, Ignacio Manuel Altamirano, Carlos Fuentes, Octavio Paz (Nobel Laureate), Renato Leduc, Carlos Monsiváis, Elena Poniatowska, Mariano Azuela ("Los de abajo") and Juan Rulfo ("Pedro Páramo"). Bruno Traven wrote "Canasta de cuentos mexicanos", "El tesoro de la Sierra Madre."

• The United Mexican States are a federation of thirty-one free and sovereign states, which form a union that exercises a degree of jurisdiction over the Federal District and other territories.

• Each state has its own constitution, congress, and a judiciary, and its citizens elect by direct voting a governor for a six-year term, and representatives to their respective unicameral state congresses for three-year terms.

• The Federal District is a special political division that belongs to the federation as a whole and not to a particular state, and as such, has more limited local rule than the nation's states.

• The states are divided into municipalities, the smallest administrative political entity in the country, governed by a mayor or municipal president (Presidente municipal), elected by its residents by plurality.

• Total crimes per capita average 12 per 1,000 people in Mexico, ranking as the 39th worst in a survey of 60 countries. As of 2009 Mexico's homicide rate varied from 10~14 per 100,000 inhabitants; the world average is 10.9 per 100,000 inhabitants. Drug-traffic and narco-related activities are a major concern in Mexico.

• Current president Felipe Calderón made abating drug-trafficking one of the top priorities of his administration. In a very controversial move, Calderón deployed military personnel to cities where drug cartels operate. While this move has been criticized by the opposition parties and the National Human Rights Commission, its effects have been praised by the Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs as having obtained "unprecedented results..." with "many important successes". Since President Felipe Calderón launched a crackdown against cartels in 2006 more than 28,000 alleged criminals have been killed. Of the total drug-related violence only 4% are innocent people, mostly by-passers and people trapped in between shootings; 90% accounts for criminals and 6% for military personnel and police officers. In October 2007, the president Calderón and US president George W. Bush announced the Mérida Initiative a historic plan of law enforcement cooperation between the two countries.