Мегаполис Мехико: Городская агломерация и экономический центр Мексики

Conurbation centered around Mexico City

Greater Mexico City is the conurbation around Mexico City, officially called the Metropolitan Area of the Valley of Mexico (lang es). It encompasses Mexico City itself and 60 adjacent municipalities of the State of Mexico and Hidalgo. Mexico City's metropolitan area is the economic, political, and cultural hub of Mexico. In recent years it has reduced its relative importance in domestic manufacturing, but has kept its dominant role in the country’s economy thanks to an expansion of its tertiary activities. The area is also one of the powerhouse regions of Latin America, generating approximately $200 billion in GDP growth or 10 percent of the regional total. as of 2020, 21,804,515 people lived in Greater Mexico City, making it the largest metropolitan area in North America. Covering an area of , it is surrounded by thin strips of highlands separating it from other adjacent metropolitan areas, together with which it makes up the Mexico City megalopolis.

The phenomenon of conurbation in Mexico is relatively recent, starting in the 1940s. Mexico City became the first metropolitan area in the country when its urban core spread beyond the borders of the Federal District into the municipality of Naucalpan in the State of Mexico. From that date, there have been different proposals to establish the limits of the growing conurbation of Mexico City, and different definitions were used unofficially as the city continued to grow: between 1950 and 1980, the conurbation extended to dozens of municipalities in the State of Mexico and the population trebled. The first official definition of Greater Mexico City was coined in 2004. A joint effort between the National Population Council (CONAPO), the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) and the Ministry of Social Development (SEDESOL) named the 16 boroughs of Mexico City and 59 municipalities in the State of Mexico and Hidalgo as the Metropolitan Area of the Valley of Mexico. This definition was also agreed by the government of Mexico City and the government of the State of Mexico on December 22, 2005. As per the agreement, most urban planning projects were to be administered by Metropolitan Commissions. As a result of the Political Reforms enacted in 2016, Mexico City is no longer designated as a Federal District and became a city, a member entity of the Mexican federation, seat of the Powers of the Union and the capital of Mexico. Mexico City is divided in 16 boroughs, officially called demarcaciones territoriales, substituting the old delegaciones.

Municipality Population(2020) Population(2010) Change Land area Population density(2020) km2 sq mi Tizayuca Hidalgo76.7

MunicipalityPopulation(2020)Population(2010)ChangeLand areaPopulation density(2020)km2sq miAcolmanAmecamecaApaxcoAtencoAtizapán de ZaragozaAtlautlaAxapuscoAyapangoChalcoChiautlaChicoloapanChiconcuacChimalhuacánCoacalcoCocotitlánCoyotepecCuautitlánCuautitlán IzcalliEcatepecEcatzingoHuehuetocaHueypoxtlaHuixquilucanIsidro FabelaIxtapalucaJaltencoJilotzingoJuchitepecLa PazMelchor OcampoNaucalpanNextlalpanNezahualcóyotlNicolás RomeroNopaltepecOtumbaOzumbaPapalotlaSan Martín de las PirámidesTecámacTemamatlaTemascalapaTenango del AireTeoloyucanTeotihuacánTepetlaoxtocTepetlixpaTepotzotlánTequixquiacTexcocoTezoyucaTlalmanalcoTlalnepantla de BazTonanitlaTultepecTultitlánValle de ChalcoVilla del CarbónZumpango State of Mexico6925.0

Greater Mexico City spreads over the valley of Mexico, also called the valley of Anáhuac, a 9,560 km2 (3,691 sq mi) valley that lies at an average of 2,240 m (7,349 ft) above sea level. Originally, a system of interconnected lakes occupied a large area of the valley, of which Lake Texcoco was the largest. Mexico City was built on the island of Tenochtitlan in the middle of the lake. During conquest of the Aztec Empire the dikes that protected the city from recurrent floods were destroyed and colonial authorities preferred to drain the water of the lake, which was, for the most part, shallow. In 1900 president Porfirio Díaz inaugurated the Valley's System of Drainage that hinders the growth of water bodies in the valley (and prevents floods). The basin of the valley of Mexico was thus integrated artificially to the Moctezuma river basin which connects to the Pánuco River. The last remnants of the system of lakes are found in the boroughs of Xochimilco and Tláhuac, and in the municipality of Atenco. The valley of Mexico is surrounded by mountains on all four sides creating a basin with only one small opening at the north, trapping all exhaust emissions of the city. At the southern part of the basin the mountain range reaches an altitude of 3,952 m (12,965 ft) above sea level; and to the east, the volcanoes reach an altitude of more than 5,000 m (16,000 ft). The region receives anti cyclonic systems, producing weak winds that do not allow for the dispersion of accumulated air pollutants, produced by the 50,000 industries operating in Greater Mexico City and the 4 million vehicles circulating in its roads and highways. There are several environmental programs in operation in all municipalities of Greater Mexico City. One of them is Hoy No Circula (known in English as "One Day without a Car"), whereby some vehicles with certain ending numbers on their license plates are not allowed to circulate on certain days in an attempt to cut down on pollution and traffic congestion. The program groups vehicles by their ending license plate digits and every weekday vehicles having any of the day's two Hoy no circula digits are banned from circulating. For instance, on Fridays, vehicles with plates ending in 9 or 0 may not drive. This program is controversial since it has resulted in households buying additional vehicles: new cars for higher income families, or very old and cheap —and thus more polluting— vehicles. Moreover, newer vehicles are exempt from complying with the program—in that they are manufactured with stricter pollution reduction equipment—a move said to have been pushed by automakers to boost sales of new vehicles. Other environmental programs include the IMECA (Índice Metropolitano de la Calidad del Aire, "Metropolitan Index of Air Quality") a real time monitoring of the concentrations of several pollutants on the atmosphere of the valley of Mexico. If the IMECA values reach a critical level, an environmental contingency is declared whereby Hoy No Circula is extended to two days per week, industrial activities are reduced, certain gas power plants shut down, and elementary school entry hours are changed. There has been a decrease in the number of environmental contingencies since the 1990s from more than 5 to only one or zero a year. This is due, among other reasons, to the development of one of the most developed air quality surveillance systems in the region, and to the implementation of industrial controls and to the relocation of some factories.

Like it is the case with all trans municipal metropolitan areas in Mexico, there is no elected government institution in charge of administering the entire metropolitan area. Each municipality is autonomous to administer its local affairs, regulated by the government of the states they belong to. However, unlike some other large metropolitan areas that are entirely contained in one state, like Greater Guadalajara and Greater Monterrey in which the state government coordinates metropolitan activities, Greater Mexico City spreads over three federal entities—two states and the Mexico city and therefore most of the metropolitan projects have to be agreed upon by government officials of each federal entity and/or overseen by the federal government—since the budget of the Federal District is approved by the Congress of the Union, being the capital of the federation—or through metropolitan commissions.

From 1940 and until 1980, Greater Mexico City experienced an intense rate of demographic growth concurrent with the economic policy of import substitution. Mexican industrial production was heavily centralized in Greater Mexico City during this period which produced intense immigration to the city. Close to 52% of the economically active population of Greater Mexico City worked in the industry sector in 1970. This situation changed drastically during the period of 1980 to 2000, in which the economic based shifted to the service sector which in 2000 employed close to 70% of the economically active population in the conurbation.

Greater Mexico City is the largest metropolitan area in Mexico and the area with the highest population density. According to the 2020 Population Census, 21,804,515 persons lived in this metropolitan area, of which 9,209,944 live in Mexico City proper. which implies that residents are moving to the outer suburbs of the metropolitan area, or to other states of Mexico. In addition, some inner city suburbs in Mexico City are losing population to outer city suburbs, indicating a continual expansion of Greater Mexico City.