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The United Mexican States, or simply Mexico, is a country located in North America, bounded on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the North Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of Mexico. The United Mexican States comprise a constitutional republican federation of thirty-one states and a federal district, Mexico City, one of the most populous cities on Earth.
Covering almost 2 million square kilometers, Mexico is the 5th largest country in the Americas by total area and 14th largest in the world. With a population of almost 109 million, it is the 11th most populous country and the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world.
As the only Latin American member of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) since 1994, Mexico is firmly established as an upper middle-income country. Elections held in July 2000 marked the first time that an opposition party won the presidency to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional: PRI), that held it since 1929, culminating a process of political alternation that had begun at the local level since the 1980s.
Mexican culture is the result of a historical process of violent and peaceful exchange of ideas, the assimilation of exogenous cultural elements and the reinterpretations of the endogenous cultural elements. As was the case in most Latin American countries, when Mexico became an independent nation, it had to slowly create a national identity, being an ethnically diverse country in which, for the most part, the only connecting element amongst the newly independent inhabitants was Catholicism.
The Porfirian era (el Porfiriato), in the second quarter of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth century, was marked by economic progress and peace which finally allowed, after four decades of civil unrest and wars with foreign nations, for the development of the arts and philosophy, which was promoted by President Díaz himself. Since that time, though accentuated during the Mexican Revolution, cultural identity had its foundation in the mestizaje, of which the indigenous (i.e. Amerindian) element was the core. In light of the various ethnicities that formed the Mexican people, José Vasconcelos in his publication La Raza Cósmica (1925) defined Mexico to be the melting pot of all races (thus extending the definition of the mestizo) not only biologically but culturally as well. This exalting of mestizaje was a revolutionary idea that sharply contrasted with the idea of a superior pure race prevalent in Europe at the time.
Post-revolutionary art in Mexico had its expression in the works of renowned artists such as Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, Rufino Tamayo and David Alfaro Siqueiros, amongst others. Diego Rivera is the most well-known figure of Mexican muralism, who painted the Man at the Crossroads in Rockefeller Center. Some of his murals are also displayed at the Mexican National Palace and the Palace of Fine Arts. Academic music composers of Mexico include Manuel M. Ponce, Mario Lavista, Silvestre Revueltas and Juventino Rosas, many of whom incorporated traditional elements into their music. Finally, Carlos Fuentes, Juan Rulfo, Elena Poniatowska José Emilio Pacheco, and the Nobel Prize winner Octavio Paz, are some of the greatest exponents of the Mexican literature.
Mostly known internationally for its tacos, fajitas, quesadillas and enchiladas, Mexican cuisine is extremely diverse. Regional dishes include mole poblano, chiles en nogada and chalupas from Puebla; cabrito and machaca from Monterrey, cochinita pibil from Yucatán, Tlayudas from Oaxaca, as well as barbacoa, chilaquiles, milanesas, and many other dishes.
The vast array of popular music genre in Mexico shows the great diversity of its culture. Endogenous music includes mariachi, banda, duranguense, norteño (grupero), ranchera and corridos. Contemporary music includes Mexican rock (or Rock nacional, represented, among many other, by Maná, El Tri, Molotov and Jaguares), heavy metal, rap, pop (like the group RBD), punk, reggaeton, and alternative music.
Many Mexican singers are famous in all of Latin America and Spain. Mexico is often referred to as the "capital of Spanish-speaking entertainment", due to the fact that any Latin or Spanish singer wanting to become an international success in the region, they must seek to enter first to the Mexican music industry.
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