Metropolitan areas of Mexico

One of the first studies on a methodology to define and quantify the metropolitan areas in Mexico was published by El Colegio de México in 1978.

In Luis Unikel's book "Urban Development in Mexico: Diagnosis and Future Implications", a metropolitan area was designated as "the territorial area that includes the political and administrative units from a central city, and any contiguous, urban political and administrative units with a direct socioeconomic interrelation with the central city, and viceversa".

[10] The distribution of the population in Mexico, especially, in urban areas, has been changed significantly by the economic interaction between settlements in its north and the United States.

[12] Metropolitan areas at the border with the United States form transnational conurbations with deep economic and demographic interaction.

The total population of the region has been estimated to be just over 5 million in 2009, making it by far the largest binational metropolitan area shared between the US and Mexico.

[13] The National Population Council (CONAPO) recognizes the existence of such metropolitan areas and defines them as the municipalities with a city of at least 200,000 inhabitants and sharing processes of conurbation with cities of the US:[3] A megalopolis is defined as a long chain of continuous metropolitan areas or territories that are relatively integrated amongst each other, a clear example being the Northeast Megalopolis in the United States.

The Mexico City megalopolis spreads over 19,500 square kilometres (7,500 sq miles) and consists of 185 subdivisions in 6 federative entities.

A map showing the location of the metropolitan areas in Mexico in 2004.
Map of Greater Mexico City, the largest metropolitan area in the country
The Mexico–U.S. border separates densely populated Tijuana , Mexico (right), from San Diego , United States (left). [ 10 ] [ 11 ]
A 3D rendered image of the Nuevo Laredo - Laredo Metropolitan Area , a binational urban agglomeration divided by the Rio Grande .
Mexico City megalopolis location