The United Mexican States ( ), or commonly Mexico (IPAEng: ˈmɛksɪkoʊ) ( ), is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered 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 are a federation comprising thirty-one states and a federal district, the capital Mexico City, whose metropolitan area is one of the world's most populous.

Covering almost 2 million square kilometres, Mexico is the fifth-largest country in the Americas by total area and the 14th largest independent nation in the world. With an estimated population of 109 million, it is the 11th most populous country and the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world.

As a regional power and the only Latin American member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) since 1994, Mexico is firmly established as an upper middle-income country.

Mexico is a newly industrialized country and the 12th largest economy in the world by GDP by purchasing power parity. The economy is strongly linked to those of its North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) partners. Despite being considered an emerging world power, the uneven distribution of income and the increase in insecurity are issues of concern.

Elections held in July 2000 marked the first time that an opposition party won the presidency from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional, PRI) which had held it since 1929, culminating the political alternation at the federal level, which had begun at the local level during the 1980s.

Etymology

After the New Spain won independence from Spain, it was decided that the new country would be named after its capital city (Mexico City) that was founded in 1524 on top of the ancient Aztec capital of México-Tenochtitlan. The origin of the name of the city comes from the Nahuatl language, where Mextli or Mēxihtli, a secret name for the god of war and patron of the Aztecs, Huitzilopochtli, in which case Mēxihco means "Place where Mēxihtli lives". Another hypothesis is that the word Mēxihco derives from the mētztli ("moon"), xictli ("navel", "center" or "son"), and the suffix -co (place), in which case it means "Place at the center of the moon" or "Place at the center of the Lake Moon", in reference to Lake Texcoco. The system of interconnected lakes, of which Texcoco was at the center, had the form of a rabbit, the same image that the Aztecs saw in the moon. Tenochtitlan was located at the center (or navel) of the lake (or rabbit/moon). Still another hypothesis suggests that it is derived from Mēctli, the goddess of maguey. The name of the country has had slightly changes since its creation, starting as the First Mexican Empire proceed by the Second Mexican Empire then the Mexican Republic and finally as the United Mexican States.