Mayhem prevails in many Mexican cities during rush hours. The traffic in some big cities rarely seems to let up, or slow down, as vehicles jockey for the best position before becoming ensnarled in a ta... read more

Mexico once tried hard to prevent Americans from migrating to Texas. In recent years, considerable attention has focused on the U.S. government's efforts to stem the flow of Mexicans migrating north o... read more

Masses of beautiful violet and yellow flowing water hyacinth ( Eichhornia crassipes) add an attractive splash of colour to the Lake Chapala landscape during the rainy season but are a serious problem for thelives and economy oflocal residents. read more

  This month, Mexico celebrates her birthday, the anniversary of her independence from Spain. On the evening of September 15, the annual El Grito ceremony is held in town plazas all across the cou... read more

As many as 62 indigenous languages are still spoken in Mexico. Most people realize that the national language of Mexico is Spanish and that Mexico is the world's largest Spanish speaking country. In f... read more

As vertical shafts go, this is a seriously deep one! Long considered to be "bottomless" since no-one had ever managed to find the floor, we now know it is precisely 335 meters (1099 feet) deep, making ... read more

A chance remark recently by Mexico Connect publisher David McLaughlin has prompted me to examine the statistics on Mexican beauty. As a single footloose and fancy-free 20-something-year-old in Mexico ... read more

In the nineteenth century, prior to the advent of the railroads, overland travel was decidedly slow and arduous. To get to Lake Chapala, for example, from Guadalajara usually entailed either an overnig... read more

The inter-census population count in Mexico in 2005 found that more than one million people in Oaxaca spoke at least one indigenous Indian language. Close behind came the state of Chiapas with about 95... read more

November 7, 2007, marks the centenary of the death of Jesús García, the "Hero of Nacozari." The small town of Nacozari occupies a valley nestled in the foothills of the Western Sierra Madre (Sierra ... read more

Anglo and Mexican sayings are often subtly different. For starters, consider your pet cat. In Canada or the U.S., cats are considered to have nine lives; in Mexico, however, cats only have seven ... read more

Shortly after arriving at Tenochtitlán in the fall of 1519, Hernán Cortés and the Spanish conquistadores were granted an audience with Moctezuma at his breakfast table. They found the Aztec r... read more

Did you know that the word "cigar" originates from the Mayan word xigar? The word was used to describe the action of aspirating or sucking which later came to signify the act of smoking tobacco. T... read more

Did you know that the vanilla bean is from an aromatic orchid that originally came from Mexico? The Academy of Sciences and Gastronomic Arts in Paris were so taken with the fruit of this orchid, that ... read more

Much of the world has heard about the legendary "Mexican Jumping Bean", the small seed that resembles the common "frijole" or bean, that, when warmed by the heat of the sun or when held in the pal... read more

Did you know that the first people known to have used the peanut were the Mayans of Mexico? International explorers first recorded the peanut in Haiti, but were told it had originally been taken from ... read more

Nochebuena, the Mexican name of the flower English-speakers call poinsettia, was discovered in Taxco and the valleys surrounding Cuernavaca. Known by the Aztecs in their native Nahuatl language as cuet... read more

Did you know that peanuts, vanilla, guavas, tomatoes, some forty different chiles, avocados, and papayas originally came from Mexico? Pineapple also grew wild in Mexico, as well as Peru and along the ... read more

Did you know that among the many things Mexico has given to the world, chewing gum is one of them? El Tzictlil, a Nahuatl word for resin from the Zapote Blanco tree, caught the attention of three Amer... read more

Juan O'Gorman was born on July 6, 1905, in Coyoacán, Mexico City. His father, Cecil Crawford O'Gorman, was a mining engineer and artist of Irish origin; his mother was Mexican. Juan was educated at th... read more

Peculiar, but true. There are several lakes named Laguna Encantada (Enchanted Lake) in Mexico, but this one is near Catemaco in the Tuxtlas region of the state of Veracruz. Catemaco is famous for its w... read more

Every two years, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) awards the Equator prize (worth 30,000 dollars) to communities that have shown "outstanding achievement in the reduction of poverty thro... read more

In the second half of the 18th century both the Russians and the British began to penetrate into the Alaskan peninsula, an area considered a Spanish possession as Spain was credited with "discovering" ... read more

From the late 17th century and throughout the 18th, Castille soap was the reigning soap of Europe. It surpassed even the French soaps that, at their peak, were considered supremely prized elements of t... read more

One of the greatest gifts the Indigenous peoples of Mexico shared with the world was their discovery and cultivation of natural fibers. One of these, henequén, continues to be used throughout the... read more