I.

Introduction

New Mexico, one of the south-western states of the United States, bordered on the north by Colorado; on the east by Oklahoma and Texas; on the south by Texas and the Mexican state of Chihuahua; and on the west by Arizona.

New Mexico entered the Union on January 6, 1912, as the 47th state. By the 1990s, services (including tourism) and government dominated the economy, although mining, ranching, and manufacturing were also important. Visitors were attracted not only by the scenic beauty of New Mexico’s deserts and mountains but also by the rich Native American and Spanish cultural heritage that distinguishes the state. The region north of Mexico was named Nuevo Mexico by a Spanish explorer in the 1560s. The name was translated and applied to the US territory organized in 1850 and later to the state. New Mexico is known as the “Land of Enchantment”.

II.

Land and Resources

With an area of 314,937 sq km (121,598 sq mi), New Mexico is the fifth-largest state in the United States. The state is roughly square in shape, and its extreme dimensions are 629 km (391 mi) from north to south and 565 km (351 mi) from east to west.

A.

Physical Geography

New Mexico has great diversity of topographical relief, from desert basins to lofty snowcapped peaks. The eastern third of the state is part of the Great Plains. The portion of this region lying south of the Canadian River is known as the High Plains, or Llano Estacado. The north-central part of the state is occupied by an extension of the Rocky Mountains. The gorge of the Rio Grande extends from north to south, dividing this rugged region in half: to the east lie the Sangre de Cristo Mountains; to the west are the Nacimiento Mountains.

The central and south-western parts of the state are occupied by the Basin and Range Region. The north-western quadrant of New Mexico is part of the Colorado Plateau. The San Juan Basin in the extreme north-east of this region is an area of relatively low relief.

The state’s major river is the Rio Grande. Other rivers include the Pecos, a tributary of the Rio Grande, the Canadian, and Gila. New Mexico has few sizeable natural lakes, and most of these are found in the mountain ranges of the north-central part of the state.

B.

Climate

New Mexico has a mild, semi-arid to arid continental climate. The average annual temperature ranges from about 4.4° C (40° F) in the mountains of the north central region to about 17.8° C (64° F) in the south. The recorded temperature has ranged from -45.6° C (-50° F) in 1951 to 46.7° C (116° F) in 1934.

C.

Plants and Animals

More than 6,000 species of plants have been identified in New Mexico, ranging from desert plants to alpine vegetation. Types include grasses and shrubs, cactus, piñon pine, and forests of yellow, ponderosa, and bristlecone pine.

Because of the diversity of natural environments, New Mexico has a great variety of wildlife. Among the larger mammals are black bear, pronghorn antelope, and mountain lion. Barbary sheep from North Africa have been introduced in mountain areas. Rattlesnakes are also present, and the tarantula is found in the south-west.

D.

Resources, Products, and Industries

New Mexico is particularly rich in energy-related mineral resources such as coal, oil, and natural gas. It is also the nation’s leading supplier of potash. Leading crops are hay, cotton, and vegetables. Principal manufacturing products are electronic equipment, precision instruments, transport equipment, printed materials, and industrial machinery. The making of arts and crafts items is important to most Native American communities. Tourism is a major industry.

III.

Population

New Mexico has 1,954,599 (2006 estimate) inhabitants. In 1990 whites made up 75.6 per cent of the population and blacks 2 per cent. Also residing in the state were some 134,100 Native Americans, constituting about 9 per cent of the total population. The principal Native American groups living in New Mexico were the Pueblo, Navajo, and Apache; many of the Native Americans resided on reservations in the state. Some 579,200 people, or more than 38 per cent of the total population, were of Latino background. The Spanish-Mexican cultural influence is strong, and many people in the state speak both Spanish and English.

New Mexico’s major cities are the capital Santa Fe (70,631 (2005 estimate)), Albuquerque (494,236 (2005 estimate)), Las Cruces (82,671 (2005 estimate)), Roswell (45,199 (2005 estimate)), Farmington (43,161 (2005 estimate)), and Rio Rancho.

A.

Education

New Mexico has had to overcome the problems presented by a widely scattered and bilingual population in order to proceed with the development of the state’s educational system. In the late 1990s New Mexico spent about US$5,825 on each student's education, compared to a national average of about US$6,835. At the start of the 21st century New Mexico had 44 institutions of higher education; among the most notable of these institutions were New Mexico State University (1888), in Las Cruces; New Mexico Highlands University (1893), in Las Vegas; Western New Mexico University (1893), in Silver City; and the University of New Mexico (1889), in Albuquerque.

B.

Places of Interest

New Mexico honours its Native American and Spanish heritage in many historical sites. The Pueblo of Acoma is believed to be the oldest continually occupied settlement in the United States. The Palace of the Governors, built by the Spanish in 1610 in Santa Fe, is the oldest public building in the United States, and the Mission of San Miguel of Santa Fe is one of the oldest churches in the country. Other Native American sites include Taos Pueblo; Aztec Ruins National Monument; Chaco Culture National Historical Park; and Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. Two important natural sites are Carlsbad Caverns National Park, near Carlsbad, and El Morro National Monument, encompassing Inscription Rock, near Grants; Bandelier National Monument is near Santa Fe.

Among the state’s major museums are the Museum of New Mexico and the Institute of American Indian Arts Museum, in Santa Fe, and the Art Museum of the University of New Mexico, the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, and the National Atomic Museum, in Albuquerque. Also of importance are the Roswell Museum and Art Center, in Roswell, and the International Space Hall of Fame, in Alamogordo.

C.

Government and Politics

New Mexico is governed under its original constitution, adopted in 1911 and put into effect in 1912, as amended. The chief executive of New Mexico is a governor, who is popularly elected to a four-year term and who, since 1994, may serve no more than two successive terms. The other elected state officials include the lieutenant-governor, secretary of state, attorney-general, treasurer, auditor, and commissioner of public lands.

Legislative authority is vested in a bicameral New Mexico legislature composed of a Senate and a House of Representatives. The 42 members of the Senate are elected to four-year terms, and the 70 members of the House are elected to two-year terms. At a national level, New Mexico elects two senators and three representatives to the US Congress. The state has five electoral votes in presidential elections (Electoral College).

Since 1912, in both state and national politics, Democrats and Republicans have been elected in relatively equal numbers.

In the 2006 elections, one Democrat and two Republicans were returned to represent the state. Senators Pete V. Domenici (Republican) and Jeff Bingaman (Democrat) represent New Mexico and face re-election in 2008 and 2012 respectively. Incumbent Democrat Bill Richardson was re-elected state governor in 2006, beating Republican challenger John Dendahl.

IV.

History

Stone Age remains found near Clovis, in the eastern part of the state, show that human beings first entered the area of New Mexico more than 10,000 years ago. Later Native American cultures practised farming and irrigation. The Anasazi culture flourished in the San Juan River Basin in the 1st millennium ad. By 1300 thousands of Pueblo people, descendants of the Anasazi, lived in 18 towns along the Rio Grande from Taos south to Isleta (below present-day Albuquerque). The Pueblos were advanced in domestic arts and crafts—pottery, weaving, and home decoration. Some of their adobe dwellings were five storeys high. In the 15th century the serenity of their lives was shattered by the arrival of the nomadic Navajo and Apache tribes. The newcomers raided the prosperous Pueblo settlements for food, clothing, tools, and Pueblo children, whom they enslaved, initiating four centuries of warfare between the two groups.

A.

Spanish and Mexican Rule

In 1539 a Spanish expedition under a Franciscan priest, Marcos de Niza, explored present New Mexico, visiting the Zuñi Pueblo. The following year Francisco Coronado ascended the Rio Grande. Spanish colonization of the area began in 1598, and Santa Fe was founded in 1610. The Spanish authorities imposed their rule on the Pueblos and converted many of them to Christianity, but the missionaries’ attempts to suppress the Native Americans’ traditional religious customs caused resentment. In 1680 the Pueblos rose in revolt, killing many of the settlers and forcing the rest to flee.

The Spanish reoccupied Santa Fe in 1692. By 1696 they had reconquered the whole area, and the Spanish Crown thereafter recognized the Pueblos’ title to their ancestral lands. New towns were established in the 18th century. In 1821, Spain gave up all of its American mainland possessions, and New Mexico became a province of the new nation of Mexico.

Mexican rule brought many changes, as Spain had always excluded foreigners from New Mexico. Under Mexico, trade with the United States was permitted, and pack trains began to move back and forth along the Santa Fe Trail from St Louis, Missouri. American merchants and trappers flocked to Santa Fe and Taos. The cultural clash thus began between the Anglos (Americans of European origin) on the one hand and the Hispanos (New Mexicans of mixed Spanish and Native American ancestry) and Native Americans on the other. Relations between Hispanos and Anglos became tense when the new Texas republic tried to seize New Mexico in 1841. Meanwhile, expansionists in the United States were demanding the annexation of all the Southwest and California. President James K. Polk declared war on Mexico in 1846 and sent General Stephen Watts Kearny and the Army of the West to invade New Mexico. Kearny took Santa Fe without firing a shot and proclaimed New Mexico part of the United States on August 18, 1846.

B.

New Mexico as a US Territory

Some Hispano New Mexicans welcomed the victorious Americans, but Native Americans at Taos Pueblo revolted and murdered Charles Bent, the governor appointed by Kearny. All Hispano New Mexicans and Pueblo became US citizens by terms of the 1848 treaty ending the war between the United States and Mexico, but Congress denied the area statehood and created the territory of New Mexico (including present New Mexico and Arizona) as part of the Compromise of 1850 that brought California into the Union as a state.

Decades of unrest followed between native New Mexicans and Anglos. In 1863, Congress carved the territory of Arizona out of western New Mexico. The Navajos, Apaches, and Comanches were subdued by US Army units, but the forced removal of the Navajos—their tragic “Long Walk” to a reservation at Bosque Redondo—was a failure; the starving people were returned in 1868 to their San Juan River homeland. Meanwhile, the economy of the territory was stimulated by the coming of the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific Railroads, by mineral finds, and by the growth of tourism. Nevertheless, most Americans before 1900 thought of New Mexico as an exotic foreign country with a strange language and strange foods and dress, known for lawlessness, cattle wars, and land-grant skulduggery, and as the home of outlaws such as Billy the Kid, who was killed in a gunfight at Fort Sumner in 1881. A more attractive notion of New Mexico began to emerge at the turn of the century, when artists from the East began describing the romantic charms of Taos and Santa Fe, and health-seekers began moving to Albuquerque to take advantage of its sunny climate.

C.

The 20th Century

New Mexico remained a territory for 62 years, partly because its residents feared the higher taxes that would come with statehood, and partly because Congress feared that democracy would not work in a Spanish-speaking community. The state schools began teaching English in 1898, however, and New Mexico was admitted to the Union on January 6, 1912, as the 47th state.

The nation’s oldest society found itself plunged into modernity when the secret city of Los Alamos, near Santa Fe, became the birthplace of the atomic bomb in 1943. Two years later the world’s first atomic bomb was exploded near Alamogordo, south of Santa Fe. The state’s economy then boomed with the coming of the White Sands Missile Range, Kirtland Air Force Base, and nuclear research installations at Albuquerque. The state’s empty desert areas came to life with the discovery of oil and gas and, near Grants, of uranium. The modest tourism of the early 1900s became a major industry. While sharing in the rapid economic growth common throughout America’s Sun Belt during much of the 1980s, New Mexico continued to attach great important to its characteristic cultural heritage.

The state, however, remains one of the poorest in the country, and funding is particularly weak in areas such as health and education. Agriculture, ranching, mining, and timbering continue to be displaced by high-tech manufacturing and tourism. The rapid fall of oil prices in 1986 hurt the state's petroleum industry, causing unemployment and a sharp fall in oil and gas tax revenues, to the detriment of state funding for education.

New Mexico's Native Americans, facing cuts in funding from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Service, continue to diversify their economies, through buying shopping centres, building resorts and gambling casinos, and investing in property.