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Mexican Facts and Figures

discarded packing crates, pieces of metal, and even cardboard boxes. Americans from across the border also crowd the streets of Tijuana, shopping for cheap Mexican crafts or looking for a good time in Tijuana’s noisy nightlife. Others come to watch a jai alai game or a bullfight, and still others visit Tijuana for one of the international food festivals that are held each year in the city. As you travel south from Tijuana, you will find yourself traveling down a long, narrow peninsula that reaches down between the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of California. The land around you is dry and mountainous, and once you leave

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Tijuana’s busy streets behind, the population is scarce, and the communities are small.

FACTS AND FIGURES ABOUT MEXICO

Total area: 755,866 sq. miles (1,958,201 sq. km)

Baja California Sur A little less than halfway down the

peninsula, you will find yourself crossing the state border into Baja California Sur. This state is much like its closest neighbor to the north, but it has even fewer people. There are, however, a few cities, and these are far different from sprawling, dirty Tijuana. Guerrero Negro is the first city just across the border. The town was founded in 1937 when a North American company began extracting and exporting salt from the nearby lagoon . Even the air tastes salty in Guerrero Negro, and the salt plant there is the world’s

Population: 120.2 million

Population growth rate: 1.21%

Urban population: 78.1%

Literacy rate: 93.5%

Gross Domestic Product (GDP): $1.845 trillion

GDP per capita: $15,600

Population below poverty line: 52.3%