New Mexico (Spanish: Nuevo México [ˈnweβo ˈmexiko] (About this soundlisten); Navajo: Yootó Hahoodzo [joː˩tʰo˥ ha˩hoː˩tso˩]) is a state in the Southwestern United States; its capital is Santa Fe, which was founded in 1610 as capital of Nuevo México (itself established as a province of New Spain in 1598), while its largest city is Albuquerque with its accompanying metropolitan area. It is one of the Mountain States of the Southern Rocky Mountains, and shares the Four Corners region of the Western U.S. with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. New Mexico is also bordered by the state of Texas to the east-southeast, Oklahoma to the northeast, and the Mexican states of Chihuahua to the south and Sonora to the southwest. With a population of 2,120,220 as of the 2020 U.S. Census, New Mexico is the 36th largest state by population. With a total area of 121,590 sq mi (314,900 km2), it is the fifth-largest and sixth-least densely populated of the 50 states. Due to their geographic locations, northern and eastern New Mexico exhibit a colder alpine climate, while western and southern New Mexico exhibit a warmer arid climate; the Rio Grande and its fertile valley runs from north-to-south creating a riperian climate in the middle of the state, supplying central New Mexico with its bosque (gallery forest) and distinct Albuquerque Basin climate.
The economy of New Mexico is dependent on oil drilling, mineral extraction, dryland farming, cattle ranching, acequia and landrace agriculture, lumber milling, retail trade, scientific research laboratories, technological development, as well as the arts, especially textiles and visual arts. As of 2018, its total gross domestic product (GDP) was $101 billion[8] with a GDP per capita of $45,465. State tax policy results in low to moderate taxation of resident personal income compared to most U.S. states, with special consideration for military personnel, and gives tax credits and exemptions to favorable industries. Because of this, its film industry has grown and contributed $1.23 billion to its overall economy. Due to its large area and economic climate, New Mexico has a large U.S. military presence marked notably with the White Sands Missile Range. Various U.S. national security agencies base their research and testing arms in New Mexico, such as the Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories; during the 1940s, Project Y of the Manhattan Project developed and built the country's first atomic bomb and nuclear test, Trinity.
Inhabited by Native Americans for many thousands of years before European exploration, it was colonized by the Spanish in 1598 as part of the Imperial Spanish viceroyalty of New Spain. In 1563, it was named Nuevo México after the Aztec Valley of Mexico by Spanish settlers, more than 250 years before the establishment and naming of the present-day country of Mexico; thus, the present-day state of New Mexico was not named after the country today known as Mexico.[9][10] After Mexican independence in 1821, New Mexico became a Mexican territory with considerable autonomy. This autonomy was threatened, however, by the centralizing tendencies of the Mexican government from the 1830s onward, with rising tensions eventually leading to the Revolt of 1837. At the same time, the region became more economically dependent on the United States. At the conclusion of the Mexican–American War in 1848, the United States annexed New Mexico as the New Mexico Territory. It was admitted to the Union as the 47th state on January 6, 1912.
Its history has given New Mexico the highest percentage of Hispanic and Latino Americans, and the second-highest percentage of Native Americans as a population proportion (after Alaska).[11] New Mexico is home to part of the Navajo Nation, 19 federally recognized Pueblo communities of Puebloan peoples, and three different federally recognized Apache tribes. In prehistoric times, the area was home to Ancestral Puebloans, Mogollon, and the modern extant Comanche and Utes[12] inhabited the state. The largest Hispanic and Latino groups represented include the Hispanos of New Mexico, Chicanos, and Mexicans. The New Mexican flag features the state's Spanish origins with the same scarlet and gold coloration as Spain's Cross of Burgundy, along with the ancient sun symbol of the Zia, a Puebloan tribe.[13] These indigenous, Hispanic, Mexican, Latin, and American frontier roots are reflected in the eponymous New Mexican cuisine and the New
Etymology
New Mexico received its name long before the present-day nation of Mexico won independence from Spain and adopted that name in 1821. Though the name "Mexico" itself derives from Nahuatl, and in that language, it originally referred to the heartland of the Empire of the Mexicas (Aztec Empire) in the Valley of Mexico far from the area of New Mexico, Spanish explorers also used the term "Mexico" to name the region of New Mexico (Nuevo México in Spanish) in 1563. In 1581, the Chamuscado and Rodríguez Expedition named the region north of the Rio Grande "San Felipe del Nuevo México".[14] The Spaniards had hoped to find wealthy indigenous Mexica (Aztec) cultures there similar to those of the Aztec (Mexica) Empire of the Valley of Mexico. The indigenous cultures of New Mexico, however, proved to be unrelated to the Mexicas, and they were not wealthy,[15][16] but the name persisted. Before statehood, the name "New Mexico" applied to various configurations of a former U.S. New Mexico Territory and, even before its former Mexican territorial status, a former provincial kingdom of New Spain called Nuevo México, all in the same general area, but of varying extensions.[17]
Geography
Further information: List of counties in New Mexico
See also: Delaware Basin
Wheeler Peak in the Sangre de Cristo Range
Puebloan ruins at Chaco Canyon
Carlsbad Caverns National Park
White Sands National Park
Rio Grande Gorge and Bridge
Shiprock
With a total area of 121,590 square miles (314,900 km2),[1] New Mexico is the fifth-largest state. New Mexico's eastern border lies along 103°W longitude with the state of Oklahoma, and (due to a 19th-century surveying error)[18] 2.2 miles (3.5 kilometres) west of 103°W longitude with Texas.[19] On the southern border, Texas makes up the eastern two-thirds, while the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Sonora make up the western third, with Chihuahua making up about 90% of that. The western border with Arizona runs along the 109° 03'W longitude.[20] The southwestern corner of the state is known as the Bootheel. The 37°N parallel forms the northern boundary with Colorado. The states of New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and Utah come together at the Four Corners in New Mexico's northwestern corner. Its surface water area is about 292 square miles (760 km2).[1]
The New Mexican landscape ranges from wide, auburn-colored deserts to broken mesas to high, snow-capped peaks. Despite New Mexico's arid image, heavily forested mountain wildernesses cover a significant portion of the state, especially towards the north. The Sangre de Cristo Mountains, the southernmost part of the Rocky Mountains, run roughly north–south along the east side of the Rio Grande in the rugged, pastoral north. The most important of New Mexico's rivers are the Rio Grande, Pecos, Canadian, San Juan, and Gila. The Rio Grande is tied for the fourth-longest river in the United States.[21]
The U.S. government protects millions of acres of New Mexico as national forests, including:[22]
Carson National Forest
Cibola National Forest (headquartered in Albuquerque)
Lincoln National Forest
Santa Fe National Forest (headquartered in Santa Fe)
Gila National Forest
Gila Wilderness
Areas managed by the National Park Service include:[23]
Aztec Ruins National Monument at Aztec
Bandelier National Monument in Los Alamos
Capulin Volcano National Monument near Capulin
Carlsbad Caverns National Park near Carlsbad
Chaco Culture National Historical Park at Nageezi
El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail
El Malpais National Monument in Grants
El Morro National Monument in Ramah
Fort Union National Monument at Watrous
Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument near Silver City
Old Spanish National Historic Trail
Organ Mountains—Desert Peaks National Monument near Las Cruces
Manhattan Project National Historical Park
Pecos National Historical Park in Pecos
Petroglyph National Monument near Albuquerque
Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument at Mountainair
Santa Fe National Historic Trail
White Sands National Park near Alamogordo
Rio Grande del Norte National Monument near Taos
Valles Caldera National Preserve in the Jemez Mountains
Areas managed by the New Mexico State Parks Division:[24]
Bluewater Lake State Park
Bottomless Lakes State Park
Brantley Lake State Park
Cerrillos Hills State Park
Caballo Lake State Park
Cimarron Canyon State Park
City of Rocks State Park
Clayton Lake State Park
Conchas Lake State Park
Coyote Creek State Park
Eagle Nest Lake State Park
Elephant Butte Lake State Park
El Vado Lake State Park
Heron Lake State Park
Hyde Memorial State Park
Leasburg Dam State Park
Living Desert Zoo and Gardens State Park
Manzano Mountains State Park
Mesilla Valley Bosque State Park
Morphy Lake State Park
Navajo Lake (Rio Arriba, NM and San Juan, NM)
Oasis State Park
Oliver Lee Memorial State Park
Pancho Villa State Park
Percha Dam State Park
Rio Grande Nature Center State Park
Rockhound State Park
Santa Rosa Lake State Park
Storrie Lake State Park
Sugarite Canyon State Park
Sumner Lake State Park
Fenton Lake State Park
Ute Lake State Park
Vietnam Veterans Memorial State Park
Villanueva State Park
Visitors also frequent the surviving native pueblos of New Mexico. Tourists visiting these sites bring significant money to the state. Other areas of geographical and scenic interest include Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument and the Gila Wilderness in the southwest of the state.[25]
Climate
Köppen climate types of New Mexico
New Mexico's climate is generally semiarid to arid, though areas of continental and alpine climates exist, and its territory is mostly covered by mountains, high plains, and desert. The Great Plains (High Plains) are in eastern New Mexico, similar to the Colorado high plains in eastern Colorado. The two states share similar terrain, with both having plains, mountains, basins, mesas, and desert lands. New Mexico's statewide average precipitation is 12.9 inches (330 mm) a year, with average monthly amounts peaking in the summer, as at Albuquerque, and Las Cruces in the south. The average annual temperatures can range from 65 °F (18 °C) in the southeast to below 40 °F (4 °C) in the northern mountains.[20] During the summer, daytime temperatures can often exceed 100 °F (38 °C) at elevations below 5,000 feet (1,500 m), the average high temperature in July ranges from 99 °F (37 °C) at the lower elevations down to 78 °F (26 °C) at the higher elevations. In the colder months of November to March, many cities in New Mexico can have nighttime temperature lows in the teens above zero, or lower. The highest temperature recorded in New Mexico was 122 °F (50 °C) at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Loving on June 27, 1994, and the lowest recorded temperature is −50 °F (−46 °C) at Gavilan (near Lindrith) on February 1, 1951.[26]
Astronomical observatories in New Mexico take advantage of unusually clear skies, including the Apache Point Observatory, the Very Large Array, the Magdalena Ridge Observatory, and others.[27][28]
Flora and fauna
Greater roadrunner (the state bird of New Mexico)
New Mexico has five unique floristic zones, providing diverse sets of habitats for many plants and animals. The Llano Estacado (or Shortgrass Prairie) in the eastern part of the state is characterized by sod-forming short grasses such as blue grama, and it used to sustain bison. The Chihuahuan Desert extends through the south of the state and is characterized by shrubby creosote. The Colorado Plateau in the northwest corner of New Mexico is high desert with cold winters, and is characterized by sagebrush, shadescale, greasewood, and other plants adapted to the saline and seleniferous soil. The mountainous Mogollon Plateau in the west-central of the state and southern Rocky Mountains in the north-central, have a wide range in elevation (4,000 to 13,000 ft or 1,200 to 4,000 m), with vegetation types corresponding to elevation gradients, such as piñon-juniper woodlands near the base, through evergreen conifers, spruce-fir and aspen forests, Krummholz, and alpine tundra. The Apachian zone tucked into the southwestern bootheel of the state has high-calcium soil, oak woodlands, and Arizona cypress, and other plants that are not found in other parts of the state.[29][30]
Some of the native wildlife includes black bears, bighorn sheep, bobcats, cougars, coyotes, deer, elk, jackrabbits, kangaroo rats, javelina, porcupines, pronghorn antelope, roadrunners, western diamondbacks, wild turkeys,[31][32][33] and the endangered Mexican gray wolf and Rio Grande silvery minnow.[34]
Environmental Issues
In January 2016, New Mexico sued the United States Environmental Protection Agency over negligence after the 2015 Gold King Mine waste water spill. The spill had caused heavy metals such as cadmium and lead and toxins such as arsenic to flow into the Animas River, polluting water basins of several states[35]
History
Main articles: History of New Mexico, New Spain, Santa Fe de Nuevo México, Mexican War of Independence, Treaty of Córdoba, First Mexican Empire, Provisional Government of Mexico, 1824 Constitution of Mexico, First Mexican Republic, Siete Leyes, Centralist Republic of Mexico, Texas Revolution, Convention of 1836, Texas Declaration of Independence, Treaties of Velasco, Republic of Texas, and Santa María–Calatrava Treaty
See also: Territorial evolution of New Mexico
Ancestral Pueblo territory shown in pink over New Mexico
Prehistory
The first known inhabitants of New Mexico were members of the Clovis culture of Paleo-Indians.[36]:19 Later inhabitants include American Indians of the Mogollon and Ancestral Pueblo peoples cultures.[37]:52
Seven Cities of Cibola and Nuevo México
Main articles:
