At this time, during the Epi-Classic, Nahua peoples began moving south into Mesoamerica from the North, and became politically and culturally dominant in central Mexico, as they displaced speakers of Oto-Manguean languages.

[61] Wanting to stabilize and develop that area — and as few people from central Mexico had chosen to resettle to this remote and hostile territory — the Mexican government encouraged Anglo-American immigration into present-day Texas, a region that bordered that United States.

Having won re-election, Juárez died in office in July 1872, and Liberal Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada became president, declaring a "religion of the state" for the rule of law, peace, and order.

The first quarter-century of the post-revolutionary period (1920–1946) was characterized by revolutionary generals serving as Presidents of Mexico, including Álvaro Obregón (1920–24), Plutarco Elías Calles (1924–28), Lázaro Cárdenas (1934–40), and Manuel Avila Camacho (1940–46).

[87][88][89] Salinas embarked on a program of neoliberal reforms that fixed the exchange rate of the peso, controlled inflation, opened Mexico to foreign investment, and began talks with the U.S. and Canada to join their free-trade agreement, which culminated in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on 1 January 1994; the same day, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) in Chiapas began armed peasant rebellion against the federal government, which captured a few towns but brought world attention to the situation in Mexico.

In the 2006 presidential election, Felipe Calderón from the PAN was declared the winner, with a very narrow margin (0.58%) over leftist politician Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).

Claudia Sheinbaum, López Obrador's political successor, won the 2024 presidential election in a landslide and upon taking office in October became the first woman to lead the country in Mexico's history.

Since the 1990s Mexico has sought a reform of the United Nations Security Council and its working methods[136] with the support of Canada, Italy, Pakistan and other nine countries, which form a group informally called the Coffee Club.

Since the 1990s, when the military escalated its role in the war on drugs, increasing importance has been placed on acquiring airborne surveillance platforms, aircraft, helicopters, digital war-fighting technologies,[141] urban warfare equipment and rapid troop transport.

However, in recent years some political parties have proposed an amendment of the Constitution to allow the Mexican Army, Air Force or Navy to collaborate with the United Nations in peacekeeping missions, or to provide military help to countries that officially ask for it.

The National Human Rights Commission has had little impact in reversing this trend, engaging mostly in documentation but failing to use its powers to issue public condemnations to the officials who ignore its recommendations.

[162] The mass kidnapping of 43 students in Iguala on 26 September 2014 triggered nationwide protests against the government's weak response to the disappearances and widespread corruption that gives free rein to criminal organizations.

[213] Mexico has 60 hydroelectric power plants which generate 12% of the country's electricity[214] with the largest being the 2,400 MW Manuel Moreno Torres Dam on the Grijalva River in Chicoasén, Chiapas.

[218] The project SEGH-CFE 1 located in Puerto Libertad, Sonora in the Northwest of Mexico was completed in December 2018 and has a capacity of 46.8 MW from an array of 187,200 solar panels,[219] all of its generated electricity is sold directly to the CFE and absorbed into the utility's transmission system for distribution throughout their existing network.

[238] In Mexican cities along the Mexico–United States border, the most lucrative hospitality industry is now medical tourism, with remnants of the traditional motivations that drove tourists to Mexico's northern borderlands for nearly a century.

[276] That notwithstanding, in practice, indigenous peoples often face discrimination and do not have full access to public services such as education and healthcare, or to the justice system, as Spanish is the prevailing language.

[309] In the 1930s, Mexico made a commitment to rural health care, mandating that mostly urban medical students receive training in it and to make them agents of the state to assess marginal areas.

[310] Since the early 1990s, Mexico entered a transitional stage in the health of its population and some indicators such as mortality patterns are identical to those found in highly developed countries like Germany or Japan.

Efforts to assimilate the native population into Christian European culture during the colonial era were only partially successful, with many pre-Columbian customs, traditions, and norms persisting regionally (particularly in rural areas) or becoming syncretized; conversely, many Spanish settlers integrated into local communities through acculturation or intermarriage.

[326] In the 20th century artists such as Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and José Clemente Orozco, the so-called "Big Three" of Mexican muralism achieved worldwide recognition.

The cities of the Maya stand out to modern architects as examples of integration between large urban centers (with elaborate stone construction) and a thick jungle, generally with a complex network of roads.

In the first few decades of Spanish presence in the continent, the high level of Christian missionary activity, especially by mendicant orders like the Dominicans or Franciscans, meant the construction of many monasteries, often with Romanesque, Gothic or Mudéjar elements.

Years later, Baroque and Mannerist styles prevailed in large cathedrals and civil buildings, while in rural areas, haciendas or stately estates with Mozarabic tendencies were built.

Designed by the most prestigious architects of the era, including Mario Pani, Eugenio Peschard, and Enrique del Moral, the buildings feature murals by artists Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and José Chávez Morado.

Luis Barragán combined the shape of the space with forms of rural vernacular architecture of Mexico and Mediterranean countries (Spain-Morocco), integrating color that handles light and shade in different tones and opens a look at the international minimalism.

With the Spaniards came the pork, beef and chicken meats; peppercorn, sugar, milk and all its derivatives, wheat and rice, citrus fruits and another constellation of ingredients that are part of the daily diet of Mexicans.

From this meeting of two millennia old culinary traditions, were born pozole, mole sauce, barbacoa and tamale in its current forms, chocolate, a large range of breads, tacos, and the broad repertoire of Mexican street foods.

Beverages such as atole, champurrado, milk chocolate and aguas frescas were born; desserts such as acitrón and the full range of crystallized sweets, rompope, cajeta, jericaya and the wide repertoire of delights created in the convents of nuns in all parts of the country.

More recently, films such as Como agua para chocolate (1992), Sex, Shame, and Tears (1999), Y tu mamá también (2001), and The Crime of Father Amaro (2002) have been successful in creating universal stories about contemporary subjects, and were internationally recognized.

Once the political turmoil of the early republic was replaced by the stability of the Porfiriato did organized sport become public diversions, with structured and ordered play governed by rules and authorities.