Mexico is a country in Southern North America and Latin America's third-largest country after Brazil and Argentina. Mexican culture is marked by extremes of wealth and poverty, with a small middle class situated between an elite group of landowners and capitalists on the one hand and vast swaths of the rural and urban destitute on the other. Despite its limitations as a developing country, Mexico remains one of Latin America's most powerful economic and political forces. It boasts a thriving industrial foundation, massive natural resources, a diverse service sector, and the world's largest Spanish-speaking population—roughly double that of Spain or Colombia.

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More than half of Mexico's population lives in the country's center, while enormous swaths of the desert north and tropical south are sparsely populated. Migrants from destitute rural areas have flooded Mexico's cities, with roughly four-fifths of the country's population now living in cities. The capital, Mexico City, is one of the world's most populous cities and metropolitan areas.

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Small communal villages survive in states like Oaxaca and Chiapas, where indigenous peasants live much as their forefathers did. Great pre-Columbian civilizations, such as Teotihuacán or the Mayan pyramids at Chichén Itzá and Tulum, stand in stark contrast to colonial settlements like Taxco and Querétaro. In comparison to the modern city of Mexico City, these communities appear to be ancient remnants.