From the first cities of Mesoamerica to today’s tariffs: how Mexico became Mexico, how it lost more than half of its land to the north and then tied its fortunes to it, and where it stands now. In English and in Spanish, every date with its source.
In 1821 Mexico reached the 42nd parallel, where Oregon begins today. By 1848 more than half of that land belonged to the USA.
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Swipe for all seven eras →
Olmec, Maya, Teotihuacan, the Mexica: three thousand years of cities before Spain.
The Pyramid of the Sun, Teotihuacan. Photo: Daniel Case, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
117 dated events in our state histories
Open the First peoples room →Conquest and the collapse of the Indigenous population, then silver, missions and haciendas; by the 1700s the crown's richest colony.
Real de Catorce, a silver boom town founded in the 1770s. Photo: Rafael Saldaña, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
163 dated events in our state histories
Open the New Spain room →Hidalgo and Morelos, a new nation, more than half its land lost to the USA, the Reform and the French.
El Obispado, Monterrey, taken by the USA army in the battle of September 1846. Photo: JavierDo, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
114 dated events in our state histories
Open the Independence and Reform room →Railways, foreign capital and order, for the few.
The Monumental Clock of Pachuca, finished for the centenary of 1910. Photo: Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
42 dated events in our state histories
Open the Porfiriato room →A war that cost about a million lives, the 1917 Constitution, land to the villages, oil expropriated in 1938.
The Palace of Cortés in Cuernavaca, where Diego Rivera painted the history of Morelos, Zapata included, in 1929-30. Photo: Zoran Lazic, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
55 dated events in our state histories
Open the Revolution room →The Mexican miracle to 1970, then oil and debt; 1968 in between.
Monterrey below the Cerro de la Silla, the steel and factory city of the growth years. Photo: Nathaniel C. Sheetz, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
55 dated events in our state histories
Open the one-party growth room →Debt crisis, NAFTA, 1994, a change of party in 2000, USMCA; since 2023 the USA's largest partner in goods.
Hermosillo, where Ford has built cars for export since 1986. Photo: Wilber magdiel jimenez, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
63 dated events in our state histories
Open the Opening room →Bars: how many of the 609 dated events in our state histories fall in each era.
See the seven eras side by side, on one line from 1521 to today →
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Swipe for the eight corridors →
The Texas-Facing NorthThe adobe city of Paquimé · Chihuahua
The Pacific BorderThe port of Ensenada · Baja California
The Bajío and Center-NorthThe Basilica of Guanajuato · Guanajuato
The CenterPuebla Cathedral · Puebla
The WestGuadalajara Cathedral · Jalisco
The Gulf and the IsthmusEl Tajín · Veracruz
The PeninsulaChichén Itzá · Yucatán
The Deep South: Guerrero, Oaxaca and ChiapasMonte Albán above the Valles Centrales · OaxacaInteractive maptap or click a state to open its page
Silver, the heartland and the frontier
The Porfiriato at its height
What each state turns on now
Why Mexico's own reading of what each state's economy turned on in that period, drawn from the sources listed in each state's room; a classification, not a measurement.
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Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, Trade in Goods with Mexico (public domain) · World Bank, World Development Indicators (updated 8 Oct 2026; CC BY 4.0) · UN DESA Population Division, International Migrant Stock 2024 (CC BY 3.0 IGO)
← Slide the chart to see the earlier years
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Trade in Goods with Mexico (public domain)
More often too hopeful than not. A year ahead, the IMF expected more growth than Mexico got in 19 of 34 years; across all 34 years the forecast ran 1.3 points too high on average, and the largest misses came in the shock years.
← Slide the chart to see the earlier years
Sources: International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook historical forecasts database (updated 22 Apr 2025) · World Bank, World Development Indicators (updated 8 Oct 2026; CC BY 4.0)
Every IMF forecast since 1990, growth and inflation, beside what happened →
INEGI's register shows Mexico's plants made 3.95 million light vehicles in 2025, against 1.61 million in 2005, while new-vehicle sales at home rose from 1.13 million to 1.53 million. Mexico now builds about 2.6 vehicles for each new one it sells.
Read →The OECD puts the average worker in Mexico at 2,205 hours in 2025, against 1,800 in the USA and 1,736 across the OECD. The 48-hour limit dates to the 1917 Constitution; from 2027 it falls toward 40.
Read →Banxico's FIX closed 1993 at 3.1071 pesos per dollar and stood at 18.7962 on 30 Oct 2026, about six times as many. Most of the change, by our arithmetic, came in a few sharp episodes: 1994-95, 2008, 2015-16 and 2020.
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