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For about as long as the country bridging Northern and Central America has been on the map, it’s gone by some form of the word “Mexico.” The term even appears in the 1603 English edition of the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum — the world’s first modern atlas. But in its 200 years of history, the country has never officially gone by “Mexico.” Instead, the country’s Constitution of 1824, inspired by the American Revolution, created Estados Unidos Mexicanos, or the United Mexican States. Two centuries later, this is still the country’s official name, though it’s mostly only used by government officials and diplomats conducting business with other countries.
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It's a factCinco de Mayo commemorates the Mexican army’s unlikely victory at the Battle of Puebla in 1862. Although it’s sporadically celebrated in Mexico, the U.S. adopted the holiday in the ’50s and ’60s to bridge American and Mexican cultures and to celebrate Mexican American identity.
In recent years, there have been attempts to align the country’s name with the more common, simplified moniker. In 2012, outgoing Mexican President Felipe Calderon put forward a motion to finally adopt “Mexico” as the official name of the nation. “It’s time that we Mexicans retake the beauty and simplicity of our motherland’s name: Mexico,” Calderon said at the time, “a name that we use when chanting or singing, a name that identifies us throughout the world and that makes us proud.” However, nothing came of Calderon’s lame-duck effort. As of right now, the moniker crowning the country’s coat of arms — stamped on every Mexican passport — still reads “Estados Unidos Mexicanos.”
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“______” may come from Náhuatl words that mean “in the moon’s belly button.”
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“Mexico” may come from Náhuatl words that mean “in the moon’s belly button.”
Mexico City wasn’t officially named “Mexico City” until 2016.
On January 29, 2016, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto officially recognized the name of the country’s capital as “Mexico City.” Although this sounds perplexing for foreigners who’ve always used the name, for residents of the capital (who are also known as chilangos, defeños, or capitalinos), this was big news. That’s because until that moment, Mexico City’s official name was “Distrito Federal,” or “Federal District” (D.F. for short), as stipulated by the nation’s 1824 constitution. The renaming of the capital was decades in the making, and followed the lackluster federal response to the 1985 earthquake in Mexico City. Being decoupled from the “federal” label, Mexico City, with its 9 million inhabitants, could lobby for a greater degree of autonomy as an equal among the 31 other states that make up the United Mexican States.
Darren Orf lives in Portland, has a cat, and writes about all things science and climate. You can find his previous work at Popular Mechanics, Inverse, Gizmodo, and Paste, among others.
