Metropolitan areas of Mexico

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Metropolitan areas in Mexico have been traditionally defined as the group of municipalities that heavily interact with each other, usually around a core city.^[1] In 2004, a joint effort between CONAPO, INEGI and the Ministry of Social Development (SEDESOL) agreed to define metropolitan areas as either:^[1]

• the group of two or more municipalities in which a city with a population of at least 50,000 is located whose urban area extends over the limit of the municipality that originally contained the core city incorporating either physically or under its area of direct influence other adjacent predominantly urban municipalities all of which have a high degree of social and economic integration or are relevant for urban politics and administration; or
• a single municipality in which a city of a population of at least one million is located and fully contained, (that is, it does not transcend the limits of a single municipality); or
• a city with a population of at least 250,000 which forms a conurbation with other cities in the United States.

It should be noted, however, that northwestern and southeastern states are divided into a small number of large municipalities whereas central states are divided into a large number of smaller municipalities. As such, metropolitan areas in the northwest usually do not extend over more than one municipality (and figures usually report population for the entire municipality) whereas metropolitan areas in the center extend over many municipalities.

Few metropolitan areas extend beyond the limits of one state, namely: Greater Mexico City (Federal District, Mexico and Hidalgo), Puebla-Tlaxcala (Puebla and Tlaxcala, but excludes the city of Tlaxcala), Comarca Lagunera (Coahuila and Durango), and Tampico (Tamaulipas and Veracruz).

Contents 1 Largest metropolitan areas of Mexico by population 2 Transnational conurbations 3 Megalopolis of central Mexico 4 See also 5 References

[edit] Largest metropolitan areas of Mexico by population

Population of the 30 biggest metropolitan areas in Mexico as reported in the 2005 Census:^[2]

Rank	Name	State	Population[3]
01	Greater Mexico City	DF - Estado de México - Hidalgo	19,231,829
02	Greater Guadalajara	Jalisco	4,095,853
03	Greater Monterrey	Nuevo León	3,664,331
04	Greater Puebla	Puebla - Tlaxcala	2,109,049
05	Greater Toluca	Estado de México	1,610,786
06	Greater Tijuana	Baja California	1,483,992
07	León	Guanajuato	1,425,210
08	Juárez	Chihuahua	1,313,338
09	La Laguna	Coahuila - Durango	1,110,890
10	Santiago de Querétaro	Querétaro	1,016,481
11	Greater San Luis Potosí	San Luis Potosí	957,753
12	Mérida	Yucatán	897,740
*[4]	Mexicali	Baja Califronia	855,962
13	Aguascalientes	Aguascalientes	805,666
14	Tampico	Tamaulipas - Veracruz	803,196
*[5]	Culiacán	Sinaloa	793,730
15	Cuernavaca	Morelos	787,556
16	Acapulco	Guerrero	786,830
17	Chihuahua	Chihuahua	784,882
18	Morelia	Michoacán	735,624
19	Saltillo	Coahuila	725,259
20	Veracruz	Veracruz	702,394
21	Villahermosa	Tabasco	644,629
*	Hermosillo	Sonora	707,890
22	Reynosa-Río Bravo	Tamaulipas	633,730
23	Cancún	Quintana Roo	586,288
24	Tuxtla Gutiérrez	Chiapas	576,872
25	Xalapa	Veracruz	545,567
26	Oaxaca	Oaxaca	504,159
27	Matamoros	Tamaulipas	462,157
28	Poza Rica	Veracruz	458,330
29	Irapuato	Guanajuato	455,259
30	Los Mochis	Sinaloa	451,977
31	Pachuca	Hidalgo	438,692
32	Celaya	Guanajuato	413,263
33	Orizaba	Veracruz	381,086
34	Tepic	Nayarit	379,296
35	Cajeme (Ciudad Obregón)	Sonora	375,800
36	Cuautla	Morelos	368,543
37	Nuevo Laredo	Tamaulipas	355,827
38	Minatitlán	Veracruz	330,781
39	Coatzacoalcos	Veracruz	321,182
40	Puerto Vallarta	Jalisco - Nayarit	304,107
41	Monclova-Frontera	Coahuila	294,191
42	Córdoba	Veracruz	293,768
43	Tlaxcala	Tlaxcala	275,182
44	Zacatecas-Guadalupe	Zacatecas	261,422
45	Colima-Villa de Álvarez	Colima	232,394
46	Zamora-Jacona	Michoacan	230,777
47	La Piedad	Michoacán - Guanajuato	229,289
48	Tulancingo	Hidalgo	204,708
49	Guaymas	Sonora	184,816
50	Tula	Hidalgo	184,691
51	Apizaco	Tlaxcala	182,473
52	Piedras Negras	Coahuila	169,771
53	San Francisco del Rincón	Guanajuato	159,127
54	Ocotlán	Jalisco	133,157
55	San Martín Texmelucan	Puebla	154,253
56	Navojoa	Sonora	144,598
57	Rioverde-Ciudad Fernández	San Luis Potosí	126,997
58	Ciudad Acuña	Coahuila	126,238
59	Tecomán	Colima	123,089
60	Acayucan	Veracruz	105,552
61	Moroleón-Uriangato	Guanajuato	99,828

[edit] Transnational conurbations

Metropolitan areas located at the border with the United States also form transnational conurbations with deep economic and demographic interaction. CONAPO also defines and recognizes the existence of such metropolitan areas and defines them as the municipalities that contain a city of at least 200,000 inhabitants which share processes of conurbation with cities of the United States of America.^[1] Transnational conurbations are:

Rank	Name	Population[6]
01	Tijuana - San Diego,CA	4,922,723
02	Ciudad Juárez - El Paso, Texas	2,345,182
03	Reynosa - McAllen, Texas	1,109,664
04	Matamoros - Brownsville, Texas	1,019,207
05	Mexicali - Calexico, California	944,319
06	Nuevo Laredo - Laredo,TX	718,073
07	Piedras Negras - Eagle Pass, Texas	201,184
08	Nogales - Nogales, Arizona	188,936
09	Ciudad Acuña - Del Rio, Texas	174,232
10	San Luis Río Colorado - San Luis, Arizona	165,442

[edit] Megalopolis of central Mexico

A megalopolis is defined as a long chain of continuous metropolitan areas, or territories that are relatively integrated amongst each other, a clear example of which is BosWash in the United States. In 1996, the Programa General de Desarollo Urbano del Distrito Federal first proposed this concept to refer to the megalopolis of central Mexico, which was later expanded by PROAIRE, a metropolitan commission on the environment.^[7] A megalopolis, is known in Spanish as a corona regional de ciudades ("regional ring of cities"). The Megalopolis of central Mexico was defined to be integrated by the metropolitan areas of Mexico City, Puebla, Cuernavaca, Toluca and Pachuca, which may also conform complex subregional rings themselves (i.e. Greater Puebla conforming a regional ring with Atlixco, San Martín Texmelucan, Tlaxcala and Apizaco). The megalopolis of central Mexico is integrated by 173 municipalities (91 of the state of Mexico, 29 of the state of Puebla, 37 of the state of Tlaxcala, 16 of Morelos and 16 of Hidalgo) and the 16 boroughs of the Federal District,^[7] with an approximate total population of almost 25 million people.

[edit] See also

• Municipalities of Mexico
• Demographics of Mexico

[edit] References