New Mexico

A state of the southwest United States on the Mexican border. It was admitted as the 47th state in 1912. Site of prehistoric cultures that long preceded the Pueblo civilization encountered by the Spanish in the 16th century, the region was governed as a province of Mexico after 1821 and ceded to the United States by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. The original territory (established 1850) included Arizona and part of Colorado and was enlarged by the Gadsden Purchase of 1853. Sante Fe is the capital and Albuquerque the largest city. Population: 1,970,000.

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Soap-tree yucca (Yucca elata) growing in the gypsum sand of White Sands National … (credit: Tom Algire)

State (pop., 2006 est.: 1,954,599), southwestern U.S. Bordered by Mexico and the U.S. states of Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, and Arizona, it covers 121,590 sq mi (314,917 sq km). Its capital is Santa Fe. In the west it is crossed north-south by the Continental Divide. The Rio Grande bisects the state and for a short distance forms the boundary with Texas. Human settlement in the area has probably spanned 10,000 years. Before the Navajo and Apache arrived in the 15th century, an agricultural Pueblo Indian civilization had developed irrigation systems, pueblos, and cliff dwellings, whose ruins remain throughout the state. Spaniards from Mexico claimed the area for Spain in the 16th century, and in 1540 Francisco Vázquez de Coronado explored it. The first settlement was at Santa Fe in 1610. Missionaries were active in the 1600s. It became part of Mexico in 1821 and was ceded to the U.S. in 1848 at the end of the Mexican-American War. The Territory of New Mexico was established by Congress in 1850. It became the 47th U.S. state in 1912 and retained its frontier image. World War II spurred economic and social change, bringing research facilities, including that at Los Alamos. The economy today is largely dependent on the export of raw materials and on federal government expenditures; oil and natural gas are also important. Tourism is New Mexico's leading industry. The University of New Mexico (1889) is in Albuquerque, and fine-arts communities are in Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

For more information on New Mexico, visit Britannica.com.

Having encountered unfathomable wealth and high civilization among the Aztecs in the Valley of Mexico, Spaniards quickly turned their attention northward, hoping to find another Mexico. New Mexico acquired its name and its early European visitors and residents from this misplaced belief in its potential mineral wealth. The Europeans found a dry, mountainous land of few trees and even less water populated by indigenous descendants of Anasazi Indians, whom the Spaniards named "Pueblos" for their towns that occupied the best lands along the banks of the Rio Grande. Seminomadic Athapascan and Shoshonean peoples, the Apaches and the Navajos, also called the high desert plateau home. The descendants of all of these groups inhabit the "Land of Enchantment" in the twenty-first century. New Mexico's history revolves around the relationships, sometimes tense, sometimes violent, sometimes friendly, among these groups and the land.

Another Mexico

The miraculous return in 1536 of Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, the Moorish slave Esteban, and two others from the disastrous 1528 Florida expedition of Pánfilo de Narváez piqued the curiosity of Spaniards. Cabeza de Vaca and his compatriots did not return with glowing reports of northern wealth, just rumors of a populous country to the north with large houses and trade in turquoise and other valuable items. These rumors sparked wild speculation as to the existence of another Mexico. When Cabeza de Vaca refused Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza's offer to return to the north, Mendoza selected the Franciscan

Fray Marcos de Niza to lead the expedition to verify the presence of wealthy northern cities. He was accompanied by the experienced Esteban.

After departing from Culiacán in 1539, Esteban and his Native retinue ranged ahead of Fray Marcos. In accordance with their plans, Esteban sent to Fray Marcos crosses of varying sizes, depending on his findings. When Esteban heard of Cíbola, he sent a large cross to Fray Marcos. The friar instructed Esteban to wait but to no avail. Esteban forged ahead, arriving at one of the Zuni pueblos, Háwikuh, where the Zunis seized and killed Esteban. Horrified at his companion's fate and eager to return to Mexico City, the Franciscan friar caught a glimpse of the Zuni village from afar, declared it Cíbola, and returned to Mexico City.

Fray Marcos's report of the golden glories of the north prompted Viceroy Mendoza to appoint his protégé Francisco Vásquez de Coronado to lead an expedition northward. The expedition seemed a mobile colony, including 350 Spaniards outfitted in armor and weaponry, 1,000 Native Mexican auxiliaries, six Franciscans, and hundreds of support staff. In July 1540 the expedition's vanguard arrived at the Zuni villages Fray Marcos had identified as the legendary Seven Cities of Cíbola, a rival to the wealth and size of Mexico City. Coronado and his forces discovered an adobe pueblo of some one hundred families. Disgusted with the friar's apparent lies, Coronado sent him back to Mexico City. The expedition settled down at Zuni for five months, where Coronado entertained delegations from other pueblos. The delegation from Pecos Pueblo told him all about the Great Plains, prompting Coronado to send Captain Hernando de Alvarado to return to Pecos with the delegation. At Pecos, a citadel of some two thousand people on the western edge of the Plains, Alvarado learned from an Indian slave called "the Turk" of a rich kingdom known as Quivira out on the Plains.

Alvarado brought the Turk to Coronado, who had relocated to Tiguex Pueblo. The expedition settled into a pueblo vacated for them north of present-day Albuquerque, where they spent the severe winter of 1540–1541. When spring finally arrived, almost the entire expedition headed for the Plains in search of Quivira, which proved elusive. Coronado, at the behest of the Turk, took thirty Spaniards and support persons deep into the Plains of central Kansas. Although other Indians claimed the Turk was lying, Coronado pushed onward. At last he located Quivira, not a rich kingdom but a village of grass lodges. In league with Pecos Pueblo, the Turk had hoped the Spaniards would be enveloped by the Plains and never return to New Mexico. For his treachery the Turk was garroted. Now convinced that no kingdom or city filled with riches lay hidden in the north, Coronado returned to Mexico in the spring of 1542. Although Coronado took no gold or riches back with him, his expedition mapped out much of the American Southwest, transforming the region from a mystery into an area ripe for permanent European settlement.

European Settlement

The scion of a silver-rich Zacatecas family, don Juan de Oñate received royal permission to colonize New Mexico in 1595. He spent three years organizing the privately funded expedition and recruiting colonists. After six months of travel, Oñate and his colonists arrived at San Juan Pueblo on the banks of the Rio Grande in northern New Mexico. The San Juans graciously shared their food and homes with their new neighbors, who soon founded their first capital at San Gabriel. Oñate and his colonists hoped New Mexico would prove rich in mineral wealth, and to that end the governor made several early forays into the New Mexican wilderness. While Oñate was out on one such journey in the late fall of 1598, his nephew Juan de Zaldivar, who was second-in-command, was killed in a battle with the Acomans at the summit of their sky city fortress. In retaliation Oñate launched a successful war party against Acoma. Determined to send a message to would be rebels among the Pueblos, Oñate passed harsh punishments onto the Acomans, the severity of which set the stage for rebellion against the Spaniards.

Finding no mineral wealth, Oñate's colony failed, leading the Spanish government to take it over in 1608. No longer proprietary, New Mexico became a royal colony maintained to secure the thousands of indigenous souls Franciscan friars had baptized during Oñate's tenure. Spain also found it prudent to maintain New Mexico as a buffer zone against foreign encroachment on the profitable mining areas of northern New Spain. The royal governor Pedro de Peralta replaced Oñate in 1608 as a symbol of Spain's takeover of the colony. In 1610 Peralta removed the San Gabriel settlement to a site further from Pueblo settlements and renamed it Santa Fe.

Franciscans established missions along the Rio Grande in or near existing Pueblo Indian communities. In addition the Franciscans launched a harsh campaign of eradication against the Pueblo religion, particularly against Native priests, which angered the Pueblos. Peralta almost immediately clashed with religious authorities in New Mexico, inaugurating a competition for authority that endured until the 1680 Pueblo revolt. Civil and religious leaders argued over which group held control of and authority over Pueblos and their tributes. In essence the contest between the two groups was over control of New Mexico itself. Such squabbles revealed to Pueblo Indians the weaknesses of the sparsely populated northern colony of less than two thousand Europeans.

Pueblo Revolt

In one of their first acts of unity, most of the Rio Grande and western Pueblos (Tanos, Tewas, and Keres), with the exception of Socorro, which did not get the word of revolt in time, and Isleta, which was hampered by the presence of too many Spaniards, organized to drive the Spaniards out of New Mexico. Plans were to revolt on 11 August 1680. The New Mexico governor Antonio de Otermín found out about the plan, however, so the revolt was moved up one day to 10 August. On that day Pueblos rose up against everyone and everything Spanish, killing twenty-two Franciscan missionaries and some four hundred Spanish settlers and destroying mission churches as the most hated symbols of Spanish domination. The Pueblo Indian Popé directed the rebellion, allegedly hiding from the Spanish in a Taos Pueblo kiva. The revolt was largely successful. The Spanish survivors, many of them female heads of households, accompanied by some Isleta and Socorro Pueblos, spent twelve years in exile in the El Paso area.

In 1692 don Diego de Vargas arrived in El Paso as New Mexico's new governor and led a "bloodless" and largely symbolic reconquest of New Mexico. The Pueblos had lost their unity, and some sought to ally themselves with the Spanish. Vargas's bloodless reconquest had to be followed by force, including a room-by-room siege of Pueblo-held Santa Fe. The Spanish victory in Santa Fe provided Vargas with a stronghold, from which he conducted a difficult military campaign against the Pueblos throughout 1694. The Pueblos answered his campaign with another revolt in 1696, during which they killed five Franciscan priests and twenty-one other Spaniards and burned churches and convents. Determined to subdue the Pueblos, Vargas launched a war of attrition that lasted six months, targeting food supplies as well as rebellious Natives. By the war's end all but the three western pueblos (Acoma, Zuni, and Hopi) were subdued. The resumption of trade in European goods beckoned the rest of the Pueblos, and they fell in line.

Accommodation

New Mexico after Vargas was largely a different place from what it had been in the seventeenth century. The eighteenth century ushered in more accommodation between Spanish settlers and Pueblos, ending the "mainly missions" atmosphere of the seventeenth century and the religious intolerance of the Franciscans. The two groups intermingled on a daily basis, sometimes intimately. Most New Mexicans eked out a meager existence, combining agriculture with raising small livestock. Merchants, soldiers, and government officials fared better, often employing a retinue of servants to tend their fields and care for their families. Roman Catholicism provided a central focus for many New Mexicans, including the Pueblo Indians, who practiced a form of Catholicism that left much of their Native religion intact.

In the eighteenth century raids by Comanche and Apache Indians and foreign encroachment from the French, British, and later the upstart Americans posed the largest threats to New Mexico. In 1786 Governor Juan Bautista de Anza engineered a "Comanche peace" by defeating the Comanche leader Cuerno Verde. Spaniards learned from the French that "peace by purchase" was far cheaper in the long run than continual raids and protracted battles. Anza convinced the Comanches to join with the Spanish against their common enemy the Apaches. The joint forces were successful in ending the Apache raids that had impoverished New Mexico's Spanish and Pueblo communities. The independence-oriented turmoil in Mexico in the 1810s and 1820s brought an end to "peace by purchase" payments to the two tribes and therefore an end to the peace.

Although Spanish officials frowned upon foreign trade, a few tenacious foreign souls attempted to reach Santa Fe and its markets prior to Mexican independence in 1821. In the late 1730s the French traders Pierre Mallet and Paul Mallet embarked on a mission to establisha trade route from New France (the modern-day upper Midwest) to Santa Fe. En route to New Mexico in 1739 they lost their six tons of trade goods in the Saline River in Kansas. Spanish authorities in Mexico denied the Mallet brothers' request for a trade license, but the brothers made a private agreement to trade with Santa Feans despite the government's decision.

Over the next few decades dozens of French traders from the Illinois country carried implements, cloth, and manufactured goods to Santa Fe in exchange for furs, gold, and silver. The international trade made Santa Fe a thriving town, and by the advent of the Missouri–Santa Fe highway, Santa Fe boasted nearly two thousand inhabitants. A few intrepid Americans, such as Zebulon Pike, rediscovered the trail to Santa Fe in the early 1800s. The trade remained the same as with the French, furs and silver in exchange for textiles, cutlery, and utensils.

The American purchase of the Louisiana Territory in 1803 put New Mexico on the defensive. Spanish officials justifiably feared invasion, as American explorers and traders kept appearing along the border and even in Santa Fe. But Spain, weak and on the verge of collapse, was in no position to guard New Mexico from the Americans. Mexican independence from Spain in 1821 brought looser trade policies to New Mexico, but Mexico had as much difficulty protecting its northern frontier from foreign intrusion as had Spain.

Santa Fe Trail

Thanks to the fortune of good timing, William Becknell, an Indian trader from Missouri, first broke open the Santa Fe trade. In so doing Becknell paved the way for American traders to tap into the pent-up consumer desires of New Mexicans. In the autumn of 1821 Becknell followed the Arkansas River west from Franklin, Missouri, with twenty men and a pack train of horses loaded with trade goods. As Becknell's group crossed Raton Pass north of Santa Fe to trade with Indians, they by chance encountered Mexican soldiers, who told them of Mexican independence and predicted that Santa Feans would gladly welcome the Missouri traders. To Becknell's delight the Mexican soldiers were correct. From trading with the New Mexicans, Becknell earned a healthy profit in silver. New Mexicans were pleased as well, for Becknell sold them higher-quality goods than what they received from the Chihuahua, Mexico, merchants, who had been their only legitimate source of trade goods prior to Becknell's visit to Santa Fe.

Becknell returned to Santa Fe in June 1822 with even more goods and men, including three wagons loaded with trade items worth$5,000. Seeking a shorter and easier route for wagon travel than the long and arduous trip across Raton Pass, Becknell forged the alternate Cimarron route, crossing the Cimarron River west of modern Dodge City, Kansas. This route, despite its heat and lack of water, became the Santa Fe Trail. By 1824 a well-established highway marked the route between Independence, Missouri, and Santa Fe.

Under Mexican Rule

American fur trappers also made their way into New Mexico in the 1820s, and Taos became the focus of the western American fur trade. By 1826 more than one hundred Mountain Men trapped beaver along the Rio Grande and the Gila. While Mexican authorities saw these mountain men as a threat, presciently recognizing them as the advance wave of American movement into the Southwest, they were not willing to interrupt the lucrative trade the trappers ushered into New Mexico. For the most part Mexican authorities left New Mexico to its own devices. Accustomed to benign neglect, New Mexicans reacted strongly to Mexican dictator Antonio López de Santa Anna's attempts to centralize Mexico. Heavy-handed attempts at imposing order on the province by Governor Albino Pérez, the only nonlocal governor of New Mexico during the Mexican period, ended in chaos in 1837 as rebellion swept through the province. The fleeing Pérez lost his life to a rabble and was replaced by the native New Mexican Manuel Armijo, who restored order. In 1844 Governor Armijo successfully warded off attempts by land-hungry Texans to claim all the land east of the Rio Grande to its source, an episode that engendered a long-held antipathy toward Texans.

The U.S.–mexican War

Texas's bid to join the United States launched a war between Mexico and the United States in 1846. U.S. general Stephen Kearney took New Mexico without a fight. Rather than organizing a defense, Governor Armijo departed for Chihuahua after meeting with the trader James Magoffin, who somehow negotiated a peaceful conquest, although no one knows for certain what happened. All did not remain peaceful, however. Discontented New Mexicans planned an uprising for 24 December 1846, but rumors reached officials, who managed to squelch the opposition's plans. On 19 January 1847 a rebel mob scalped the appointed U.S. governor Charles Bent and twelve others sympathetic to the American cause. Rebellion spread throughout northern New Mexico. In February 1847 Colonel Sterling Price marched on Taos Pueblo, where the rebels had gathered. After a bloody battle the ringleaders were hanged, bringing an end to the armed resistance to the American occupation of New Mexico.

In the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which officially ended the war in 1848, New Mexico became part of the United States, and its people became American citizens. New Mexico had the necessary population for statehood, sixty-one thousand Hispanics and thirty thousand Indians in the 1850 census, and the support of Presidents James K. Polk and Zachary Taylor, but circumstances changed as gold was discovered in California. The Compromise of 1850 declared New Mexico a territory without restrictions on the issue of slavery and adjusted the long-contested boundary between New Mexico and Texas. New Mexico lost its bid for statehood to the politics of slavery and remained a territory for sixty-two years, until 1912.

The Civil War

During the 1850s the U.S. military built an elaborate defense system in New Mexico consisting of six military posts designed to keep hostile Indian tribes under control. The military thereby became the mainstay of the territory's economy and allowed the population to spread out from the Rio Grande valley. In 1861, however, Federal troops returned home to fight the Civil War, abandoning the defense system protecting those settlers and disrupting the orderly development of New Mexico. The territory sided with the Union, mostly out of hatred for the Confederate Texans. The few Civil War battles, including Valverde and Glorieta Pass (1862), that took place in New Mexico were more a reassertion of Texas imperialism than an integral part of Confederate strategy. Indeed most of the fighting in New Mexico during the Civil War years was against Indians. Colonel James H. Carleton ordered Colonel Christopher "Kit" Carson, a former mountain man, to campaign against the Mescalero Apaches (1863) and then the Navajos (1864). Carson prevailed against both tribes. Survivors were marched to Bosque Redondo, the first experiment in Indian reservations, which failed utterly. An 1868 treaty allowed the Navajos to return to their much-reduced homeland. The U.S. military confronted the Comanches and the Apaches in the 1870s and 1880s and confined both groups to reservations by the end of the 1880s.

The Civil War was a watershed in New Mexico history, bending the territory toward the United States and away from Mexico. After the war New Mexico shared much of the history of the rest of the American West, range wars, mining booms, railroad construction, Indian wars, nationalized forests, and military bases. As Anglo-Americans moved into the territory, Hispanic New Mexicans found it more difficult to hold onto their ancestral lands. The 1878–1879 Lincoln County War reflected the tensions among New Mexico's various populations, especially Hispanic sheepherders and Anglo cattle ranchers.

Statehood

New Mexico finally achieved statehood in 1912, beginning a new era. Statehood meant that a satisfactory level of Americanization had been reached, and participation in the twentieth century's major military efforts continued the process. Some 50,000 New Mexicans served their country in World War II, including Navajo Code Talkers. The state had the highest volunteer rate of any state. Many of these volunteers died in the Bataan death march. Northern New Mexico's mountains hid the secret Los Alamos labs and the Manhattan Project during World War II, and the first atomic bomb was detonated at the Trinity Test Site at White Sands on 16 July 1945, establishing the state as a major location for federal defense projects. Investments reached $100 billion by the end of the Cold War. Military defense continued to boost New

Mexico's economy in the early twenty-first century along with tourism and some manufacturing. The legendary Route 66 bisected the state, passing through Albuquerque and bringing tourists who sampled the state's blend of cultures and drank in the romanticized Spanish and Indian past provided by boosters.

Indians maintained a significant presence in New Mexico. Unlike most Native Americans, the Pueblos, Navajos, and Apaches remained on a portion of their ancestral homelands, while many other Native Americans settled in Albuquerque. India agent John Collier and the General Federation of Women's Clubs helped New Mexican Pueblos successfully overturn the 1922 Bursum bill, which would have given squatters land ownership and water rights in traditional Pueblo lands. The Pueblo Lands Act of 1924 protected Pueblo lands from squatters and recognized the land rights Pueblos had enjoyed under Spanish and Mexican rule. In recent years, Indian gaming brought an influx of cash to some of New Mexico's tribes and added punch to their political presence.

After 1848 Hispanics sought redress for the loss of their ancestral lands, mostly through the U.S. court system. In the last half of the twentieth century the issue of land grants generated some isolated violence, namely the July 1967 takeover of the county courthouse at Tierra Amarilla by the activist Reies Lopes Tijerina and his followers. New Mexican Indians also fought the loss of their lands, particularly sacred sites such as Taos Pueblo's Blue Lake, which had been swallowed by the Carson National Forest. President Richard M. Nixon returned Blue Lake to them in the 1970s. The twentieth century also put New Mexico on the map as a center for the arts. Early in the century Taos became an arts colony, attracting artists, writers, and other intellectuals. In 1914, artists Ernest L. Blumenschein and Bert Philips founded the Taos Society of Artists, prompting the development of a distinctive New Mexican style. Santa Fe, the state capital, also draws artists and the tourists who support them. The mix of three cultures, Indian, Hispanic, and Anglo, makes the forty-seventh state a vibrant laboratory for race relations.

Bibliography

Boyle, Susan Calafate. Los Capitalistas: Hispano Merchants and the Santa Fe Trade. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1997.

DeBuys, William. Enchantment and Exploitation: The Life and Hard Times of a New Mexico Mountain Range. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1985.

DeMark, Judith Boyce, ed. Essays in Twentieth-Century New Mexico History. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994.

Deutsch, Sarah. No Separate Refuge: Culture, Class, and Gender on an Anglo-Hispanic Frontier in the American Southwest, 1880–1940. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

Gutiérrez, Ramón A. When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sexuality, and Power in New Mexico, 1500–1846. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1991.

Jensen, Joan M., and Darlis A. Miller, eds. New Mexico Women: Intercultural Perspectives. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1986.

Kessell, John L. Kiva, Cross, and Crown: The Pecos Indians and New Mexico, 1540–1840. Washington, D.C.: National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1979.

Simmons, Marc. New Mexico: An Interpretive History. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1988.

Szasz, Ferenc Morton. The Day the Sun Rose Twice: The Story of the Trinity Site Nuclear Explosion, July 16, 1945. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1984.

Vargas, Diego de. Remote beyond Compare: Letters of Don Diego de Vargas to His Family from New Spain and New Mexico, 1675–1706. Edited by John L. Kessell. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1989.

Weber, David J. The Mexican Frontier, 1821–1846: The American Southwest under Mexico. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1982.

———. The Spanish Frontier in North America. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992.

State in the southwestern United States bordered by Colorado to the north, Oklahoma and Texas to the east, Texas and Mexico to the south, and Arizona to the west. Its capital is Santa Fe, and its largest city is Albuquerque.

• Center of the Los Alamos Research Center, where the atomic bomb was developed.
• An important center of Native American culture and home to Navajo reservations.

This southwestern state is the oldest known vitis vinifera growing region in the United States. History tells us that in 1629 monks successfully planted mission vines in Senecu, an Indian pueblo south of the city of Socorro (about 80 miles south of Albuquerque). But it's thought that there may have been earlier plantings in southern New Mexico, dating as far back as the late 1500s, over a century before the Spanish missionaries in California began planting. The viticultural area along the Rio Grande River was so successful that by the 1880s, it was the fifth largest wine-producing region in the United States with an annual output of about one million gallons of wine. Floods, crop disease, and prohibition curtailed this copious production, finally bringing it to a halt in 1920. It wasn't until the late 1970s and early 1980s that New Mexico's wine industry began to revive. Winemakers realized that the high-desert climate's long hot days (which allow grapes to mature and ripen to proper sugar levels) and cool nights (which help set good acid levels) was favorable to the production of good wines. There are three approved avas in New Mexico-southern New Mexico has mesilla valley ava and the mimbres valley ava; middle rio grande valley ava is in the middle of the state. Today there are nearly twenty-five wineries throughout the state. The best known is probably Gruet Winery-partially because the owners are French and partially because it produces great sparkling wine. Luarent Gruet and Farid Himeur started the winery in 1987. They came to New Mexico from the champange region in france where their families had produced sparkling wines since 1952 at Gruet Champagne.

flag of New Mexico

• Abbreviation: NM
• Capital City: Santa Fe
• Date of Statehood: Jan. 6, 1912
• State #: 47
• Population: 1,819,046
• Area: 121593 sq.mi. Land 121359 sq. mi. Water 234 sq.mi.
• Economy:
  Agriculture: cattle, dairy products, hay, nursery stock, chilies;
  Industry: electric equipment, petroleum and coal products, food processing, printing and publishing, stone, glass, and clay products, tourism
• Where the name comes from: Named by the Spanish for lands north of the Rio Grande River
• State Bird: Roadrunner
• State Flower: Yucca Flower
• About the Flag: The yellow field and red symbol colors are the colors of Spain. On New Mexico's flag is a red sun with rays streching out from it. There are four groups of rays with four rays in each group -- an ancient sun symbol of a Native American people called the Zia. The Zia believed that the giver of all good gave them gifts in groups of four. These gifts are: the four directions, the four seasons, the day (sunrise, noon, evening, night), and life (childhood, youth, middle years and old age), all bound by a circle of life and love, with no beginning or end.
• State Motto: Crescit eundo -- It grows as it goes
• State Nickname: Land of Enchantment
• State Song: O, Fair New Mexico

This article is about the U.S. State of New Mexico. For other uses, see New Mexico (disambiguation).

State of New Mexico
Flag Seal Nickname(s): Land of Enchantment Motto(s): Crescit eundo ("It grows as it goes") before statehood, known as the New Mexico Territory
Official language(s)	none
Spoken language(s)	English 82% Spanish 29%, Navajo 4%[1][2]
Demonym	New Mexican
Capital	Santa Fe
Largest city	Albuquerque
Largest metro area	Albuquerque-Rio Rancho Metro
Area	Ranked 5th in the US
- Total	121,665 sq mi (315,194 km2)
- Width	342 miles (550 km)
- Length	370 miles (595 km)
- % water	0.2
- Latitude	31° 20′ N to 37° N
- Longitude	103° W to 109° 3′ W
Population	Ranked 36th in the US
- Total	1,984,356 (2008 est.)[3] 1,819,046 (2000)
- Density	16.2/sq mi  (6.27/km2) Ranked 45th in the US
Elevation
- Highest point	Wheeler Peak[4] 13,167 ft  (4013.3 m)
- Mean	5,692 ft  (1,735 m)
- Lowest point	Red Bluff Reservoir[5] 2,842 ft  (866 m)
Admission to Union	January 6, 1912 (47th)
Governor	William B. Richardson III (D)
Lieutenant Governor	Diane D. Denish (D)
U.S. Senators	Jeff Bingaman (D) Tom Udall (D)
U.S. House delegation	1: Martin Heinrich (D) 2: Harry Teague (D) 3: Ben R. Luján (D) (list)
Electoral votes	{{{ElectoralVotes}}}
Time zone	Mountain: UTC-7/-6
Abbreviations	NM US-NM
Website	www.newmexico.gov

New Mexico ( /nuːˈmɛksɨkoʊ/ (help·info)) is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. Inhabited by Native American populations for many centuries, it has also been part of the Imperial Spanish viceroyalty of New Spain, part of Mexico, and a U.S. territory. Among U.S. states, New Mexico has the highest percentage of Hispanics at 45% (2008 estimate),^[6] being descendants of Spanish colonists and recent immigrants from Latin America. It also has the third-highest percentage of Native Americans after Alaska and Oklahoma, and the fifth-highest total number of Native Americans after California, Oklahoma, Arizona, and Texas.^[7] The tribes represented in the state consist of mostly Navajo and Pueblo peoples. As a result, the demographics and culture of the state are unique for their strong Hispanic, Mexican, and Native American cultural influences. At a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth most sparsely inhabited U.S. state.

Contents 1 Geography 1.1 Climate 2 Flora and fauna 3 History 4 Demographics 4.1 Population 4.1.1 Important cities and counties 4.2 Race and ancestry 4.3 Languages 4.4 Religion 4.4.1 Religious affiliations 4.4.2 Catholic Church hierarchy 5 Economy 5.1 Economic indicators 5.2 Oil and gas production 5.3 Federal government 5.4 Economic incentives 5.5 State taxes 6 Transportation 6.1 Road 6.2 Urban mass transit 6.3 Rail 6.3.1 Freight 6.3.2 Passenger 6.4 Aerospace 7 Law and government 8 Education 8.1 Primary and secondary education 8.2 Colleges and universities 9 Culture 9.1 Art and literature 9.2 Sports 10 See also 11 References 12 Further reading 13 External links

Geography

Further information: List of New Mexico counties

Digitally colored elevation map of New Mexico.

The state's total area is 121,665 square miles (315,110 km²). The eastern border of New Mexico lies along 103° W longitude with the state of Oklahoma, and three miles (5 km) west of 103.5° W longitude with Texas. On the southern border, Texas makes up the eastern two-thirds, while the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Sonora make up the western third, with Chihuahua making up about 90% of that. The western border with Arizona runs along the 109° 03' W longitude. The 37° N latitude parallel forms the northern boundary with Colorado. The states New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and Utah come together at the Four Corners in the northwestern corner of New Mexico. New Mexico, although a large state, has little water. Its surface water area is only about 250 square miles (650 km²). New Mexico's average precipitation rate is only 15 inches (380 mm) a year.

Wheeler Peak, the highest point in the State of New Mexico.

Northern New Mexico Landscape, Near Youngsville.

Pueblo Ruins at Aztec Ruins National Monument.

Carlsbad Caverns Interior.

The Dunes at White Sands National Monument.

The landscape ranges from wide, rose-colored deserts to broken mesas to high, snow-capped peaks. Despite New Mexico's arid image, heavily forested mountain wildernesses cover a significant portion of the state, especially towards the north. The Sangre de Cristo Mountains, the southernmost part of the Rocky Mountains, run roughly north-south along the east side of the Rio Grande in the rugged, pastoral north. The most important of New Mexico's rivers are the Rio Grande, Pecos, Canadian, San Juan, and Gila. The Rio Grande is the eighth longest river in the U.S.

Creosote bush, mesquite, cacti, yucca, and desert grasses, including black grama, purple three-awn, tobosa, and burrograss, cover the broad, semiarid plains that cover the southern portion of the state.

The Federal government protects millions of acres of New Mexico as national forests including:

• Carson National Forest
• Cibola National Forest (headquartered in Albuquerque)
• Lincoln National Forest
• Santa Fe National Forest (headquartered in Santa Fe)
• Gila National Forest
• Gila Wilderness

Areas managed by the National Park Service include:^[8]

• Aztec Ruins National Monument at Aztec
• Bandelier National Monument in Los Alamos
• Capulin Volcano National Monument near Capulin
• Carlsbad Caverns National Park near Carlsbad
• Chaco Culture National Historical Park at Nageezi
• El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail
• El Malpais National Monument in Grants
• El Morro National Monument in Ramah
• Fort Union National Monument at Watrous
• Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument near Silver City
• Old Spanish National Historic Trail
• Pecos National Historical Park in Pecos
• Petroglyph National Monument near Albuquerque
• Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument at Mountainair
• Santa Fe National Historic Trail
• White Sands National Monument near Alamogordo

Visitors also frequent the surviving native pueblos of New Mexico. Tourists visiting these sites bring significant monies to the state. Other areas of geographical and scenic interest include Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument and the Valles Caldera National Preserve. The Gila Wilderness lies in the southwest of the state.

See also: Delaware Basin

Climate

The climate of New Mexico is highly arid and its territory is mostly covered by mountains, high plains, and desert.

Flora and fauna

New Mexico offers habitat for occurrence of many plant and animal species, with emphasis upon many desert areas and large amounts of pinon-juniper woodland. Native birds include the Road-runner, Geococcyx californianus^[9] and Wild turkey, Meleagris gallopavo subspecies mexicana.^[10]

Desert scene not far from Chaco Canyon.

The Organ Mountains Near Las Cruces.

History

Main article: History of New Mexico

The first known inhabitants of New Mexico were members of the Clovis culture of Paleo-Indians.^[11]:19 Later inhabitants include Native Americans of the Mogollon and the Anasazi cultures.^[12]:52 By the time of European contact in the 1500s, the region was settled by the villages of the Pueblo peoples and groups of Navajo, Apache and Ute.^[11]:6,48

Francisco Vázquez de Coronado assembled an enormous expedition at Compostela in 1540–1542 to explore and find the mystical Seven Golden Cities of Cibola as described by Fray Marcos de Niza.^[12]:19–24 The name Nuevo México was first used by a seeker of gold mines named Francisco de Ibarra who explored far to the north of Mexico in 1563 and reported his findings as being in "a New Mexico".^[13] Juan de Oñate officially established the name when was appointed the first governor of the new Province of New Mexico in 1598.^[12]:36–37 In 1598 he founded the San Juan de los Caballeros colony, the first permanent European settlement in the future state of New Mexico,^[14] on the Rio Grande near Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo.^[12]:37 Oñate extended El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, "Royal Road of the Interior," by 700 miles (1,100 km) from Santa Bárbara, Chihuahua to his remote colony.^[15]:49

Wagon in the mechanics corral of Fort Union National Monument.

The settlement of Santa Fe was established at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains around 1608.^[15]:182 The city, along with most of the settled areas of the state, was abandoned by the Spanish for 12 years (1680–1692) as a result of the successful Pueblo Revolt.^[16] After the death of the Pueblo leader Popé, Diego de Vargas restored the area to Spanish rule.^[12]:68–75 While developing Santa Fe as a trade center, the returning settlers founded Albuquerque in 1706 from existing surrounding communities,^[12]:84 naming it for the viceroy of New Spain, Francisco Fernández de la Cueva, 10th Duke of Alburquerque.^[17]

As a part of New Spain, the claims for the province of New Mexico passed to independent Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence.^[12]:109 The Republic of Texas claimed the portion east of the Rio Grande when it seceded from Mexico in 1836.^[18] Texas was separated from New Mexico by the Comancheria and its only attempt to establish a presence or control in the claimed territory was the failed Texas Santa Fe Expedition. The extreme northeastern part of New Mexico was originally ruled by France, and sold to the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.^[19] The Spanish population increased rapidly, possibly to 25,000 by 1800. The Apache and Comanche raids on Hispanic settlers were common until well into the period of U.S. occupation.^[20]

Following the Mexican-American War, from 1846-1848 and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, Mexico ceded its mostly unsettled northern holdings, today known as the American Southwest and California, to the United States of America.^[12]:132 In the Compromise of 1850 Texas ceded its claims to the area lying east of the Rio Grande in exchange for ten million dollars.^[12]:135 The United States acquired the southwestern boot heel of the state and southern Arizona below the Gila river in the mostly desert Gadsden Purchase of 1853.^[12]:136

Congress admitted New Mexico as the 47th state in the Union on January 6, 1912.^[12]:166

Los Alamos National Laboratory and Los Alamos, New Mexico.

During World War II, the first atomic bombs were designed and manufactured at Los Alamos and the first was tested at Trinity site in the desert on the White Sands Proving Grounds between Socorro and Alamogordo.^{[12]:179–180}

Historical populations
Census	Pop.		%±
1850	61,547		—
1860	93,516		51.9%
1870	91,874		−1.8%
1880	119,565		30.1%
1890	160,282		34.1%
1900	195,310		21.9%
1910	327,301		67.6%
1920	360,350		10.1%
1930	423,317		17.5%
1940	531,818		25.6%
1950	681,187		28.1%
1960	951,023		39.6%
1970	1,017,055		6.9%
1980	1,303,302		28.1%
1990	1,515,069		16.2%
2000	1,819,046		20.1%
Est. 2008	1,984,356	[3]	9.1%
Sources: 1850–1990,[21] 2000[3]

New Mexico has benefited from federal government spending. It is home to three Air Force bases, White Sands Missile Range, and the federal research laboratories Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories. The state's population grew rapidly after World War II, going from 531,818 in 1940 to 1,819,046 in 2000.^[3][21] Employment growth areas in New Mexico include microelectronics, call centers, and Indian casinos.^[22]

Demographics

See also: List of cities in New Mexico  and New Mexico locations by per capita income

Population

New Mexico Population Density Map.

The United States Census Bureau, as of July 1, 2008, estimated New Mexico's population at 1,984,356,^[3] which represents an increase of 165,315, or 9.1%, since the last census in 2000.^[23] This includes a natural increase since the last census of 114,583 people (that is 235,551 births minus 120,968 deaths) and an increase due to net migration of 59,499 people into the state.^[23] Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 34,375 people, and migration within the country produced a net gain of 25,124 people.^[23]

The center of population of New Mexico is located in Torrance County, in the town of Manzano.^[24]

7.2% of New Mexico's population was reported as under 5 years of age, 28% under 18, and 11.7% were 65 or older. Females make up approximately 50.8% of the population.

As of 2006, 8.2% of the residents of the state were foreign-born.

Important cities and counties

Albuquerque, located in central New Mexico, hosts the University of New Mexico and Sandia National Laboratories. Albuquerque is the largest city in the state.

Las Cruces, located in southern New Mexico, hosts New Mexico State University and is the second most populous city in the state.

Rio Rancho, located in the Albuquerque Metro Area. Rio Rancho is New Mexico's third largest and fastest growing city and is the site of Intel's Fab 11X, the largest and most advanced semiconductor plant in the world.

Santa Fe, approximately 60 miles North-Northeast of Albuquerque, it is the capital and the state's fourth largest city.

Roswell is located in southeastern New Mexico and is the fifth largest city in the state.

The 10 Most Populous New Mexico Cities and Towns
2008 Census Bureau estimates^[25]

Rank	City	County	Population
1	Albuquerque	Bernalillo County	522,000
2	Las Cruces	Dona Ana County	91,865
3	Rio Rancho	Sandoval County	79,655
4	Santa Fe	Santa Fe County	71,831
5	Roswell	Chaves County	46,198
6	Farmington	San Juan County	42,637
7	Alamogordo	Otero County	35,757
8	Clovis	Curry County	32,352
9	Hobbs	Lea County	30,476
10	Carlsbad	Eddy County	25,629

The 5 Most Populous New Mexico Counties
2008 Census Bureau estimates^[26]

Rank	County	Population within county limits	Land Area sq. miles	Population Density per sq mi	Largest city
1	Bernalillo County	635,139	1,166	540	Albuquerque
2	Doña Ana County	201,603	3,807	52	Las Cruces
3	Santa Fe County	143,937	1,909	75	Santa Fe
4	San Juan County	122,500	5,514	22	Farmington
5	Sandoval County	122,298	3,710	32	Rio Rancho

Race and ancestry

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2008)

According to the Census Bureau, 1.5% of the population is Multiracial/Mixed-Race, a population larger than both the Asian and NHPI population groups.^{[citation needed]} In 2008 New Mexico had the highest percentage (45%) of Hispanics of any state,^[6] with 83% of these native-born and 17% foreign-born.^[27] The state also has a large Native American population, third, in percentage, behind Alaska and Oklahoma.^{[citation needed]}

According to estimates from the United States Census Bureau's Population Estimate Program,^[28] on July 1, 2007 the population of New Mexico was 1,969,915, and the number of New Mexicans of these single races were: White, 1,663,821 (84.46%); Black, 56,083 (2.85%); American Indian or Alaskan Native, 186,256 (9.46%); Asian, 27,722 (1.41%); and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, 2,787 (0.14%). There were 33,246 (1.69%) of two or more races. Whites are broken into Hispanic and non-Hispanic. There were 874,688 (44.40%) Hispanics. White persons not Hispanic 833,274 (42.3%).

According to the 2000 United States Census,^[29]:6 the most commonly claimed ancestry groups in New Mexico were: Mexican (16.3%), American Indian (10.3%), German (9.8%), Hispanic (9.4%), and Spanish (9.3%).

Languages

According the 2000 U.S. Census, 28.76% of the population aged 5 and older speak Spanish at home, while 4.07% speak Navajo.^[30] Speakers of New Mexican Spanish dialect are mainly descendants of Spanish colonists who arrived in New Mexico in the 17th and 18th centuries.^[31]

New Mexico is commonly thought to have Spanish as an official language alongside English, due to the widespread usage of Spanish in the state. Although the original state constitution of 1912 provided for a temporarily bilingual government, New Mexico has no official language. Nevertheless, the state government publishes a driver's manual as well as ballots in both languages (they are required to publish ballots in Spanish by federal law).

The constitution provided that, for the following twenty years, all laws passed by the legislature be published in both Spanish and English, and thereafter as the legislature should provide.

Prior to 1967, notices of statewide and county elections were required to be printed in English and "may be printed in Spanish." Additionally, many legal notices today are required to be published in both English and Spanish.^[32]

In 1995, New Mexico adopted a State Bilingual Song, New Mexico - Mi Lindo Nuevo México.^[33]:75,81

Religion

Religious affiliations

San Miguel Chapel in Santa Fe is the oldest standing church structure in the United States. The adobe walls were constructed around A.D. 1610.

According to a report compiled by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies, the largest denominations in 2000 were the Catholic Church with 670,511; the Southern Baptist Convention with 132,675; the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with 42,261; and the United Methodist Church with 41,597 adherents.^[34] According to a 2008 survey by the Pew Research Center, the most common self-reported religious affiliation of New Mexico residents are:^[35]:100

• Roman Catholic – 26%
• Protestant
  • Mainline – 15%
  • Evangelical – 25%
  • Other Protestant – 2%
• LDS (mormon) – 2%
• Jewish – 2%
• Buddhist – 2%
• Other Religions – 3%
• Unaffiliated – 22%

Catholic Church hierarchy

The Santa Cruz Church one of the oldest churches in the state built in 1733, located in Santa Cruz, New Mexico near Espanola. The Spanish name for the church is "La Iglesia de Santa Cruz de la Canada".

Within the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, New Mexico belongs to the Ecclesiastical Province of Santa Fe. New Mexico has three dioceses, one of which is an archdiocese:

• Archdiocese of Santa Fe
• Diocese of Gallup
• Diocese of Las Cruces

Economy

Main article: Economy of New Mexico

New Mexico State Quarter circulated in late 2008.

Oil and gas production, tourism, and federal government spending are important drivers of the state economy. State government has an elaborate system of tax credits and technical assistance to promote job growth and business investment, especially in new technologies.

Economic indicators

In 2007 New Mexico's Gross Domestic Product was $76.178 billion (preliminary figure).^[36] In 2007 the per capita personal income was $31,474 (rank 43^rd in the nation).^[37] In 2005 the percentage of persons below the poverty level was 18.4%.^[38] The New Mexico Tourism Department estimates that in Fiscal Year 2006 the travel industry in New Mexico generated expenditures of $6.5 billion.^[39]

Oil and gas production

New Mexico is a leading crude oil and natural gas producer in the United States. The Permian Basin (part of the Mid-Continent Oil Field) and San Juan Basin lie partly in New Mexico. In 2006 New Mexico accounted for 3.4% of the crude oil, 8.5% of the dry natural gas, and 10.2% of the natural gas liquids produced in the United States.^[40] In 2000 the value of oil and gas produced was $8.2 billion.^[41]

Federal government

The F-22 Raptor is flown by the 49th Fighter Wing at Holloman AFB.

Federal government spending is a major driver of the New Mexico economy. In 2005 the federal government spent $2.03 on New Mexico for every dollar of tax revenue collected from the state. This rate of return is higher than any other state in the Union.^[42]

Many of the federal jobs relate to the military; the state hosts three air force bases (Kirtland Air Force Base, Holloman Air Force Base, and Cannon Air Force Base); a testing range (White Sands Missile Range); and an army proving ground and maneuver range (Fort Bliss - McGregor Range). A May 2005 estimate by New Mexico State University is that 11.65% of the state's total employment arises directly or indirectly from military spending.^[43] Other federal installations include the technology labs of Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories.

Economic incentives

New Mexico provides a number of economic incentives to businesses operating in the state, including various types of tax credits and tax exemptions. Most of the incentives are based on job creation.^[44]

New Mexico law allows governments to provide land, buildings, and infrastructure to businesses to promote job creation. Several municipalities have imposed an Economic Development Gross Receipts Tax (a form of Municipal Infrastructure GRT) that is used to pay for these infrastructure improvements and for marketing their areas.^[45]

The state provides financial incentives for film production.^[46][47] The New Mexico Film Office estimated at the end of 2007 that the incentive program had brought more than 85 film projects to the state since 2003 and had added $1.2 billion to the economy.^[48]

State taxes

Beginning in 2008, personal income tax rates for New Mexico range from 1.7% to 4.9%, within four income brackets.^[49] Beginning in 2007, active-duty military salaries are exempt from the state income tax.^[50]

New Mexico imposes a Gross Receipts Tax (GRT) on many transactions, which many even include some governmental receipts. This resembles a sales tax but unlike the sales taxes in many states it applies to services as well as tangible goods. Normally, the provider or seller passes the tax on to the purchaser, however legal incidence and burden apply to the business, as an excise tax. GRT is imposed by the state and there may an additional locality component to produce a total tax rate.^[51] As of July 1, 2008 the combined tax rate ranged from 5.125% to 8.4375%.^[52]

Property tax is imposed on real property by the state, by counties, and by school districts. In general, personal-use personal property is not subject to property taxation. On the other hand, property tax is levied on most business-use personalty. The taxable value of property is 1/3 of the assessed value. A tax rate of about 30 mills is applied to the taxable value, resulting in an effective tax rate of about 1%. In the 2005 tax year the average millage was about 26.47 for residential property and 29.80 for non-residential property. Assessed values of residences cannot be increased by more than 3% per year unless the residence is remodeled or sold.^[53]

Transportation

New Mexico has long been an important corridor for trade and migration. The builders of the ruins at Chaco Canyon also created a radiating network of roads from the mysterious settlement. Chaco Canyon's trade function shifted to Casas Grandes in the present-day Mexican state of Chihuahua, however, north-south trade continued. The pre-Columbian trade with Mesoamerican cultures included northbound exotic birds, seashells and copper. Turquoise, pottery, and salt were some of the goods transported south along the Rio Grande. Present-day New Mexico's pre-Columbian trade is especially remarkable for being undertaken on foot. The north-south trade route later became a path for colonists with horses arriving from New Spain as well as trade and communication. The route was called El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro.^[54]

Santa Fe Trail in Cimarron, New Mexico.

The Santa Fe Trail was the 19^th century US territory's vital commercial and military highway link to the Eastern United States. All with termini in Northern New Mexico, the Camino Real, the Santa Fe Trail and the Old Spanish Trail are all recognized as National Historic Trails. New Mexico's latitude and low passes made it an attractive east-west transportation corridor. As a territory, the Gadsden Purchase increased New Mexico's land area for the purpose of the construction of a southern transcontinental railroad, that of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Another transcontinental railroad was completed by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. The railroads essentially replaced the earlier trails but brought on a population boom. Early transcontinental auto trails later crossed the state bringing more migrants. Railroads were later supplemented or replaced by a system of highways and airports. Today, New Mexico's Interstate Highways approximate the earlier land routes of the Camino Real, the Santa Fe Trail and the transcontinental railroads.

Road

New Mexico highways.

Gallup, New Mexico along old U.S. Route 66.

The automobile changed the character of New Mexico, marking the start of large scale immigration to the state from elsewhere in the United States. Settlers moving West during the Great Depression and post-World War II American culture immortalized the National Old Trails Highway, later U.S. Route 66. Today, the automobile is heavily relied upon in New Mexico for transportation.

New Mexico had 59,927 route miles of highway as of the year 2000, of which 7,037 receive federal-aid.^[55] In that same year there were 1,003 miles (1,614 km) of freeways, of which 1000 were the route miles of Interstate Highways 10, 25 and 40.^[56] The former number has increased with the upgrading of roads near Pojoaque, Santa Fe and Las Cruces to freeways. The fatality rate, in terms of persons killed per 100 million lane miles traveled, in the year 2000 was 1.9 percent. This is approximately the same as Wyoming, but higher than Massachusetts (0.8 percent) and lower than Mississippi (2.7 percent).^[57] Notable bridges include the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge near Taos. As of 2001, 703 highway bridges, or one percent, were declared "structurally deficient" or "structurally obsolete".^[58]

Rural and intercity public transportation by road is provided by Americanos USA, LLC, Greyhound Lines and several government operators.

See also: Speed limits in the United States#New Mexico and List of New Mexico highways

Urban mass transit

The New Mexico Rail Runner Express is a commuter rail system serving the metropolitan area of Albuquerque, New Mexico. It began operation on July 14, 2006.^[59] The system runs from Belen to downtown Santa Fe. Larger cities in New Mexico typically have some form of public transportation by road, ABQ RIDE is the largest such system in the state.

See also: Category:Bus transportation in New Mexico

Rail

There were 2354 route miles of railroads in the year 2000, this number increases with the opening of the Rail Runner's extension to Santa Fe.^[60] In addition to local railroads and other tourist lines, the state jointly owns and operates a heritage narrow-gauge steam railroad, the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railway, with the state of Colorado. Narrow gauge railroads once connected many communities in the northern part of the state, from Farmington to Santa Fe.^[61]:110 No less than one hundred railroads of various names and lineage have operated in the jurisdiction at some point.^[61]:8 New Mexico's rail transportation system reached its height in terms of length following admission as a state; in 1914 eleven railroads operated 3124 route miles.^[61]:10

The Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad.

Railroad surveyors arrived in New Mexico in the 1850s.^[62] The first railroads incorporated in 1869.^[61]:9 The first operational railroad, the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway (ATSF), entered the territory by way of the lucrative and contested Raton Pass in 1878. It eventually reached El Paso, Texas in 1881 and with the Southern Pacific Railroad created the nation's second transcontinental railroad with a junction at Deming. The Southern Pacific Railroad entered the territory from the Territory of Arizona in 1880.^{[61]:9, 18, 58-59[62]} The Denver & Rio Grande Railway, who would generally only use narrow gauge equipment in New Mexico, entered the territory from Colorado and began service to Espanola on December 31, 1880.^{[61]:95-96 [62]} These first railroads were built as long-distance corridors, later railroad construction also targeted resource extraction.^[61]:8-11

See also: List of New Mexico railroads

Freight

New Mexico is served by two class I railroads, the BNSF Railway and the Union Pacific Railroad. Combined, they operate 2,200 route miles of railway in the state.^[63]

Passenger

The railway station in Tucumcari.

A commuter rail operation, the New Mexico Rail Runner Express, connects the state's capital, its largest city and other communities. The privately-operated state owned railroad began operations in July 2006.^[59] The BNSF Railway's entire line from Belen to Raton, New Mexico was sold to the state, partially for the construction of phase II of this operation, which opened in December 2008.^[64] Phase II of Rail Runner extended the line northward to Santa Fe from the Sandoval County station, the northernmost station under Phase I service. The service now connects Santa Fe, Sandoval, Bernalillo, and Valencia Counties. The trains connect Albuquerque's population base and central business district to downtown Santa Fe with up to eight roundtrips in a day. The section of the line running south to Belen is served less frequently.^[65] Rail Runner operates scheduled service Monday through Saturday each week.^[66]

With the rise of rail transportation many settlements grew or were founded and the territory became a tourist destination. As early as 1878, the ATSF promoted tourism in the region with emphasis on Native American imagery.^[67]:64 Named trains often reflected the territory they traveled: Super Chief, the streamlined successor to the Chief^[67]; Navajo, an early transcontinental tourist train; and Cavern, a through car operation connecting Clovis and Carlsbad (by the early 1950s as train 23-24)^{[61]:49-50[68]:51}, were some of the named passenger trains of the ATSF that connoted New Mexico.

Passenger train service once connected nine of New Mexico's present ten most populous cities (the exception is Rio Rancho), while today passenger train service only connects two: Albuquerque and Santa Fe. With the decline of most intercity rail service in the United States in the late 1960s, New Mexico was left with minimal services. No less than six daily long-distance roundtrip trains supplemented by many branch line and local trains served New Mexico in the early 1960s. Declines in passenger revenue, but not necessarily ridership, prompted many railroads to turn over their passenger services in truncated form to Amtrak, a state owned enterprise. Amtrak, also known as the National Passenger Railroad Corporation, began operating the two extant long-distance routes in May 1971.^[61][67][68] Resurrection of passenger rail service from Denver to El Paso, a route once plied in part by the ATSF's El Pasoan^[68]:37, has been proposed over the years. As early as the 1980s former Governor Toney Anaya proposed building a high-speed rail line connecting the two cities with New Mexico's major cities.^[69] Front Range Commuter Rail is a project to connect Wyoming and New Mexico with high-speed rail.

The New Mexico Rail Runner Express is a commuter rail operation train that runs along the Central Rio Grande Valley.

Amtrak's Southwest Chief passes through daily at stations in Gallup, Albuquerque, Lamy, Las Vegas, and Raton, offering connections to Los Angeles, Chicago and intermediate points.^[70] The Southwest Chief is the fastest Amtrak long distance train, being permitted a maximum speed of 90 mph in various places on the tracks of the BNSF Railway.^[71] It also operates on New Mexico Rail Runner Express trackage. The Southwest Chief is the successor to the Super Chief and El Capitan.^[68]:115 The streamliner Super Chief, a favorite of early Hollywood stars, was one of the most famous named trains in the United States and one of the most esteemed for its luxury and exoticness—train cars were named for regional Native American tribes and outfitted with the artwork of many local artists—but also for its speed: as few as 39 hours 45 minutes westbound.^[67]

The Sunset Limited makes stops three times a week in both directions at Lordsburg, and Deming, serving Los Angeles, New Orleans and intermediate points.^[72] The Sunset Limited is the successor to the Southern Pacific Railroad's train of the same name and operates exclusively on Union Pacific trackage in New Mexico.

Aerospace

The Albuquerque International Sunport is the state's primary port of entry for air transportation.

Upham, near Truth or Consequences is the location of the world's first operational and purpose-built commercial spaceport, Spaceport America.^[73][74][75] Rocket launches began in April, 2007.^[75] It is undeveloped and has one tenant, UP Aerospace, launching small payloads.^[76] Virgin Galactic, a space tourism company, plans to make this their primary operating base.^[74][77]

See also: List of airports in New Mexico

Law and government

See also: New Mexico local government

State of New Mexico Elected Officials
Governor	William B. Richardson III (D)
Lieutenant Governor	Diane D. Denish (D)
Secretary of State	Mary Herrera (D)
Attorney General	Gary King (D)
State Auditor	Hector Balderas (D)
State Treasurer	James B. Lewis (D)
State Land Commissioner	Patrick H. Lyons (R)

The Constitution of 1912, as amended, dictates the form of government in the state.

On March 18, 2009, the Governor signed the law abolishing the death penalty in New Mexico after the assembly and senate vote the week before, thus becoming the 15th U.S. state to abolish the penalty^[78].

Governor Bill Richardson and Lieutenant Governor Diane Denish, both Democrats, won re-election in 2006. Their terms expire in January 2011. Governors serve a term of four years and may seek reelection for one additional term (limit of two terms). For a list of past governors, see List of New Mexico Governors.

Other constitutional officers, all of whose terms also expire in January 2011, include Secretary of State Mary Herrera,^[79] Attorney General Gary King,^[80] State Auditor Hector Balderas,^[81] State Land Commissioner Patrick H. Lyons,^[82] and State Treasurer James B. Lewis.^[83] Herrera, King, Balderas and Lewis are Democrats. Lyons is a Republican.

The Capitol of New Mexico in 1900, It was later set on fire. Today the building is the Bataan Memorial Building.

The Current New Mexico State Capitol in Santa Fe.

The New Mexico State Legislature consists of a 70-seat House of Representatives and a 42-seat Senate.

New Mexico sent Democrat Jeff Bingaman to the United States Senate until January 2013 and Democrat Tom Udall until January 2015. Democrats Martin Heinrich, Harry Teague and Ben R. Luján represent the state in the United States House of Representatives. See New Mexico congressional map.

Education

Jerry Apodaca Education Building, the headquarters of the New Mexico Public Education Department

The Zimmerman Library of University of New Mexico.

Due to the state's various research facilities, New Mexico had the highest concentration of Ph.D holders of any state in 2000.^[84]

Primary and secondary education

See also: List of high schools in New Mexico

The New Mexico Public Education Department oversees the operation of primary and secondary schools.

Colleges and universities

Main article: List of colleges and universities in New Mexico

Culture

See also: List of people from New Mexico

Symbols of the Southwest — a string of chili peppers and a bleached white cow's skull hang in a market near Santa Fe

With a Native American population of 134,000 in 1990, New Mexico still ranks as an important center of Native American culture. Both the Navajo and Apache share Athabaskan origin. The Apache and some Ute live on federal reservations within the state. With 16 million acres (6,500,000 ha), mostly in neighboring Arizona, the reservation of the Navajo Nation ranks as the largest in the United States. The prehistorically agricultural Pueblo Indians live in pueblos scattered throughout the state, many older than any European settlement.

More than one-third of New Mexicans claim Hispanic origin, the descendants of the Spanish colonists in the northern portion of the state. Most of the Mexican immigrants reside in the southern part of the state.

There are many New Mexicans who also speak a unique dialect of Spanish. New Mexican Spanish has vocabulary often unknown to other Spanish speakers. Because of the historical isolation of New Mexico from other speakers of the Spanish language, the local dialect preserves some late medieval Castilian vocabulary considered archaic elsewhere, adopts numerous Native American words for local features, and contains much Anglicized vocabulary for American concepts and modern inventions.

The presence of various indigenous Native American communities, the long-established Spanish and Mexican influence, and the diversity of Anglo-American settlement in the region, ranging from pioneer farmers and ranchers in the territorial period to military families in later decades, make New Mexico a particularly heterogeneous state.

There are natural history and atomic museums in Albuquerque, which also hosts the famed Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.

Art and literature

This section requires expansion.

A large artistic community thrives in Santa Fe, and has included such people as Bruce Nauman, Richard Tuttle, John Connell and Steina Vasulka. The capital city has museums of Spanish colonial, international folk, Navajo ceremonial, modern Native American, and other modern art. Another museum honors late resident Georgia O'Keeffe. Colonies for artists and writers thrive, and the small city teems with art galleries. In August, the city hosts the annual Santa Fe Indian Market, which is the oldest and largest juried Native American art showcase in the world.

The interior of the Crosby Theatre at the Santa Fe Opera; viewed from the mezzanine.

Performing arts include the renowned Santa Fe Opera which presents five operas in repertory each July to August, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival held each summer, and the restored Lensic Theater a principal venue for many kinds of performances. The weekend after Labor Day boasts the burning of Zozobra, a 50 ft (15 m) marionette, during Fiestas de Santa Fe.

In the mid-20th century there was a thriving Hispano school of literature and scholarship being produced in both English and Spanish. Among the more notable authors were: Angélico Chávez, Nina Otero-Warren, Fabiola Cabeza de Baca, Aurelio Espinosa, Cleofas Jaramillo, Juan Bautista Rael, and Aurora Lucero-White Lea.

As well, writer D. H. Lawrence lived near Taos in the 1920s at the D. H. Lawrence Ranch where there is a shrine said to contain his ashes.

Silver City in the southwestern mountains of the state, was originally a mining town, and at least one nearby mine still operates. it is perhaps better known now as the home of and/or exhibition center for large numbers of artists, visual and otherwise.

Sports

This section requires expansion with: discussion and possibly more teams.

The New Mexico Scorpions and the New Mexico Wildcats play in the Santa Ana Star Center

Notable professional sports teams based in New Mexico include the professional teams Albuquerque Isotopes, Triple A affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers (baseball), Albuquerque Thunderbirds (basketball), New Mexico Scorpions (ice hockey), and the New Mexico Wildcats (indoor football). The state universities field teams in many sports; teams include the University of New Mexico Lobos and the New Mexico State Aggies.

Olympic gold medalist Tom Jager, who is an advocate of controversial high-altitude training for swimming, has conducted training camps in Albuquerque (elevation 5,312 ft (1,619.1 m)) and Los Alamos (7320 ft (2,231 m)).^[85]

See also

New Mexico portal

Main article: Outline of New Mexico

• Index of New Mexico-related articles

References

1. ^ Ages 5 and older
2. ^ http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-29.pdf
3. ^ ^{a b c d e} "Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for the United States, Regions, States, and Puerto Rico: April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2008". United States Census Bureau. http://www.census.gov/popest/states/tables/NST-EST2008-01.csv. Retrieved 2009-02-05. 
4. ^ "Wheeler". NGS data sheet. U.S. National Geodetic Survey. http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/ds_mark.prl?PidBox=GM0779. Retrieved 2009-07-17. 
5. ^ "Elevations and Distances in the United States [of America]". U.S Geological Survey. 29 April 2005. http://erg.usgs.gov/isb/pubs/booklets/elvadist/elvadist.html#Highest. Retrieved November 6 2006. 
6. ^ ^{a b} US Census Bureau (2009-05-14). "Census Bureau Releases State and County Data Depicting Nation's Population Ahead of 2010 Census". Press release. http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/population/013734.html. Retrieved 2009-07-17. "New Mexico had the highest percentage of Hispanics at 45 percent." 
7. ^ "The Native American and Alaska Native Population: 2000" (pdf). [[United States [of America] Census Bureau]]. 2002. http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/c2kbr01-15.pdf. Retrieved 2007-08-05. 
8. ^ "New Mexico". National Park Service. http://www.nps.gov/state/nm. Retrieved 2008-07-17. 
9. ^ Florence Merriam Bailey. 1928. Birds of New Mexico, ‎807 pages
10. ^ C. Michael Hogan. 2008. Wild turkey: Meleagris gallopavo, GlobalTwitcher.com, ed. N. Stromberg
11. ^ ^{a b} Murphy, Dan (2000). New Mexico, the distant land: an illustrated history. photo research by John O. Baxter (2000 ed.). Sun Valley, CA: American Historical Press. ISBN 9781892724090. 
12. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l} Simmons, Marc (1988). New Mexico: An Interpretive History (New ed.). Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. ISBN 0826311105. 
13. ^ Stewart, George (2008) [1945]. Names on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States. New York: NYRB Classics. pp. 23–24. ISBN 9781590172735. "There was Francisco de Ibarra, a great seeker after gold mines. In 1563 he went far to the north...when he returned south, Ibarra boasted that he had discovered a New Mexico. Doubtless, like others, he stretched the tale, and certainly the land of which he told was well south of the one now so called. Yet men remembered the name Nuevo México, though not at first as that of the region which Coronado had once conquered." 
14. ^ "Cuarto Centenario: 400 Years of New Mexico Culture and History". New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs. 1999. http://www.newmexicoculture.org/CuartoCentenario/index.html. Retrieved 2008-10-12. 
15. ^ ^{a b} Simmons, Mark (1991). The Last Conquistador: Juan De Oñate and the Settling of the Far Southwest. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0806123680. 
16. ^ Resistance and Accommodation in New Mexico. Source: C. W. Hackett, ed., Historical Documents relating to New Mexico, Nueva Vizcaya, and Approaches Thereto, to 1773, vol. III [Washington: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1937] pp. 327-35.
17. ^ "The Founding of Albuquerque - The Albuquerque Museum". City of Albuquerque. http://www.cabq.gov/museum/history/foundingabq.html. Retrieved 2008-10-12. 
18. ^ "Texas Annexation Questions and Answers". Texas State Library and Archives Commission. http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/exhibits/annexation/aftermath/question10.html. Retrieved 2008-10-12. 
19. ^ "Boundaries of the Louisiana Purchase as Recognized Today". Louisiana: European Explorations and the Louisiana Purchase. Library of Congress. December 2001. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/maps/lapurchase/essay1e_lg.html. Retrieved 2008-12-06. 
20. ^ New Mexico (state). Britannica Online Encyclopedia.
21. ^ ^{a b} "Table 16. Population: 1790 to 1990" (PDF). Population and Housing Unit Counts. 1990 Census of Population and Housing. CPH-2-1. U. S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. pp. 26–27. http://www.census.gov/prod/cen1990/cph2/cph-2-1-1.pdf. Retrieved 2008-07-03. 
22. ^ Reynis, Lee A.; Marshall J. Vest (2005). "The Southwest Heartland: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly" (PDF). University of New Mexico, Bureau of Business and Economic Research. pp. 12. http://www.unm.edu/~bber/pubs/WRSA.pdf. Retrieved 2008-10-12. 
23. ^ ^{a b c} U. S. Census Bureau (2008-12-15). "Cumulative Estimates of the Components of Population Change for the United States, Regions and States: April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2008 (NST-EST2008-04)" (CSV). http://www.census.gov/popest/states/tables/NST-EST2008-04.csv. Retrieved 2009-01-16. 
24. ^ "Population and Population Centers by State: 2000". United States Census Bureau. http://www.census.gov/geo/www/cenpop/statecenters.txt. Retrieved 2008-12-06. 
25. ^ "Table 4: Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places in New Mexico, Listed Alphabetically: April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2008 (SUB-EST2008-04-35)" (CSV). US Census Bureau, Population Division. 2009-07-01. http://www.census.gov/popest/cities/tables/SUB-EST2008-04-35.csv. Retrieved 2009-07-10. 
26. ^ "Table 1: Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Counties of New Mexico: April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2008 (CO-EST2008-01-35)" (CSV). US Census Bureau, Population Division. 2009-03-19. http://www.census.gov/popest/counties/tables/CO-EST2008-01-35.csv. Retrieved 2009-07-10. 
27. ^ Demographic Profile of Hispanics in New Mexico, 2007. Pew Hispanic Center.
28. ^ "Table 3: Annual Estimates of the Population by Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin for New Mexico: April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2007" (CSV). US Census Bureau. 2008-05-01. http://www.census.gov/popest/states/asrh/tables/SC-EST2007-03-35.csv. Retrieved 2008-11-08. 
29. ^ Brittingham, Angela; G. Patricia de la Cruz (June 2004). "Table 3. Largest Ancestries for the United States, Regions, States, and for Puerto Rico: 2000" (PDF). Ancestry: 2000; Census 2000 Brief. US Census Bureau. http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/c2kbr-35.pdf. Retrieved 2008-11-08. 
30. ^ MLA Language Map Data Center: Most spoken languages in New Mexico
31. ^ "The Spanish language in New Mexico and southern Colorado"
32. ^ "Language Rights and New Mexico Statehood", The Excluded Student: Educational Practices Affecting Mexican Americans in the Southwest, Mexican American Education Study, Report III, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1972, pp. 76-82
33. ^ "State Symbols". New Mexico Blue Book 2007–2008. New Mexico Secretary of State. http://www.sos.state.nm.us/BlueBook2008/StateSymbols.pdf. Retrieved 2009-01-03. 
34. ^ State Membership Report: New Mexico. Religious Congregations and Membership in the United States, 2000.. http://www.thearda.com/mapsReports/reports/state/35_2000.asp. Retrieved 2008-09-19. 
35. ^ Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. (February 2008) (PDF). U.S. Religious Landscape Survey: Religious Affiliation: Diverse and Dynamic. Pew Research Center. http://religions.pewforum.org/maps. Retrieved 2008-06-25. 
36. ^ "New Mexico Gross Domestic Product by Industry". University of New Mexico, Bureau of Business and Economic Research. 2008-06-11. http://www.unm.edu/~bber/econ/st-gsp1.htm. Retrieved 2008-10-09. 
37. ^ "Per Capita Personal Income by State". University of New Mexico, Bureau of Business and Economic Research. 2008-04-04. http://www.unm.edu/~bber/econ/us-pci.htm. Retrieved 2008-10-13. 
38. ^ "Persons Below Poverty by New Mexico County". University of New Mexico, Bureau of Business and Economic Research. 2008-01-18. http://www.unm.edu/~bber/demo/SAIPEallagepov05.htm. Retrieved 2008-10-13. 
39. ^ "Travel Economic Impact Model" (PDF). New Mexico Tourism Department. http://www.newmexico.org/department/research/docs/Economic_Impact_FY2006.pdf. Retrieved 2008-10-02. 
40. ^ "EIA State Energy Profiles: New Mexico". US Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration. 2008-10-09. http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/state/state_energy_profiles.cfm?sid=NM. Retrieved 2008-10-09. 
41. ^ "Oil & Gas Program". New Mexico Institute of Technology, New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources. http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/resources/petroleum/. Retrieved 2008-10-09. 
42. ^ "Federal Spending Received Per Dollar of Taxes Paid by State, 2005". Tax Foundation. 2007-10-09. http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/266.html. Retrieved 2008-09-21. 
43. ^ Dr. Chris Erickson; Erin Ward (May 2005). "Economic Impact of the Closure of Cannon Air Force Base". New Mexico Business Outlook. New Mexico State University. http://bbrs.nmsu.edu/nmbizoutlook/showarticle.php?articleID=50106. Retrieved 2008-10-13. 
44. ^ "Business Assistance: Incentives". State of New Mexico Economic Development Department. http://www.edd.state.nm.us/businessAssistance/incentives/index.html. Retrieved 2008-06-02. 
45. ^ Domrzalski, Dennis (2003-09-19), "28 New Mexico towns tap into $45M in incentives", New Mexico Business Weekly, OCLC 30948175, http://www.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/stories/2003/09/22/story2.html, retrieved 2008-06-02 
46. ^ "Governor Signs Film Production Tax Incentives". New Mexico Economic Development Department. March 4, 2002. http://www.nmpartnership.com/press-releases/article.php?id=1022&title=Governor+Signs+Film+Production+Tax+Incentives. Retrieved 2007-09-12. 
47. ^ "New Mexico's Film Incentives". New Mexico Film Office. http://www.nmfilm.com/filming/incentives/. Retrieved 2008-06-02. 
48. ^ Hay, Kiera (2007-12-10), State's Incentives Keep Film Industry Growing, Albuquerque Journal, OCLC 9392114, http://www.abqjournal.com/AED/268427business12-10-07.htm, retrieved 2008-06-02 
49. ^ "Personal Income Tax Rates" (PDF). State of New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department. 2008-08-25. pp. 3. http://www.tax.state.nm.us/forms/year08/pitrates_2005_2008.pdf. Retrieved 2008-09-04. 
50. ^ Office of the Governor, State of New Mexico (2008-06-14). "Governor Richardson Announces New Laws to Take Effect; New State laws go into effect June 15, 2007" (PDF). Press release. http://www.governor.state.nm.us/press/2007/june/061407_04.pdf. Retrieved 2008-09-05. "HB 436 Working Families Tax Credit...eliminates taxes on active duty military salaries." 
51. ^ "Gross Receipts Taxes FAQ" (PDF). State of New Mexico, Taxation and Revenue Department. 2006-08-06. http://www.tax.state.nm.us/oos/GrossReceiptsTaxFAQ.pdf. Retrieved 2008-10-09. 
52. ^ "Gross Receipts Tax Rate Schedule, Effective July 1, 2008 through December 31, 2008" (PDF). State of New Mexico, Taxation and Revenue Department. 2008-06-05. http://www.tax.state.nm.us/pubs/GrossReceiptsRates/grt_rates_july_2008.pdf. Retrieved 2008-10-09. 
53. ^ "Property Tax FAQ" (PDF). State of New Mexico, Taxation and Revenue Department. 2007-08-07. http://www.tax.state.nm.us/oos/PropertyTaxFAQ.pdf. Retrieved 2008-10-09. 
54. ^ Suina, Kim. "Indigenous trade". Digital History Project---Book of Migrations. New Mexico Office of the State Historian. http://www.newmexicohistory.org/story2.php?catid=727. Retrieved 2009-03-31. 
55. ^ U.S. Department of Transportation Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Table 1-2: New Mexico Public Road Length, Miles by Ownership 2000[1]
56. ^ U.S. Department of Transportation Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Table 1-1: New Mexico Public Road Length, by Functional System [2]
57. ^ U.S. Department of Transportation Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Table 2-1: Highway Traffic Fatalities and Fatality Rates: 2000[3]
58. ^ U.S. Department of Transportation Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Table 1-5: Highway Bridge Condition: 2001 [4]
59. ^ ^{a b} Holmes, Sue Major (January 14, 2009). "Mass. firm sues state over Railrunner name". Boston.com. http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/01/14/mass_firm_sues_state_over_railrunner_name/. Retrieved 2009-02-02. 
60. ^ U.S. Department of Transportation Bureau of Transportation Statistics,Table 1-9: Freight Railroads in New Mexico and the United States: 2000 [5]
61. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i} Myrick, David F. (1970). New Mexico's Railroads---An Historical Survey. Golden, Colorado: Colorado Railroad Museum. Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 70-116915. 
62. ^ ^{a b c} "New Mexico and its Railroads". La Crónica de Nuevo México/New Mexico Office of the State Historian: Digital History Project---The Book of Mapping. Historical Society of New Mexico. August 1984. http://www.newmexicohistory.org/story2.php?catid=731. Retrieved 2009-03-31. 
63. ^ U.S. Department of Transportation Bureau of Transportation Statistics,Table 1-9: Freight Railroads in New Mexico and the United States: 2000[6]
64. ^ Grimm, Julie Ann (December 17, 2008). "Delays, struck cow mark Rail Runner's first day, but riders optimistic". The Santa Fe New Mexican. http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Local%20News/Delays-mark-first-morning-of-commuter-train-service. Retrieved 2009-02-02. 
65. ^ New Mexico Rail Runner Express weekday schedule
66. ^ Rail Runner schedule page
67. ^ ^{a b c d} Richards, C Fenton Jr (2001). Santa Fe - The Chief Way. Second Printing, 2005. Robert Strein & John Vaughn. New Mexico Magazine. ISBN 0-937206-71-7. 
68. ^ ^{a b c d} Dorin, Patrick C. (2004). Santa Fe Passenger Trains in the Streamlined Era. design and layout by Megan Johnson. USA: TLC Publishing, Inc.. ISBN 1-883089-99-9. 
69. ^ Herron, Gary (December 22, 2008). "Media and politicians enjoy inaugural ride, public opening met with delays". The Observer. http://www.observer-online.com/articles/2008/12/21/news/doc494d4df4b3d01455138411.txt. Retrieved 2009-02-02. 
70. ^ "Southwest Chief passenger timetable". Amtrak. October 2008. http://www.amtrak.com/timetable/oct08/P03.pdf. Retrieved 2009-02-02. 
71. ^ Blaszak, Michael W. (2009). "Speed, Signals, and Safety". Fast Trains. Classic Trains Special Edition No. 7 (Waukesha, Wisconsin: Kalmbach Publishing Co.): 47. ISBN 978-0-89024-763-1. 
72. ^ "Sunset Limited passenger timetable". Amtrak. January 2009. http://www.amtrak.com/timetable/jan09/P01.pdf. Retrieved 2009-02-02. 
73. ^ Ohtake, Miyoko (August 25, 2007). "Virgin Galactic Preps for Liftoff at World's First Commercial Spaceport". Wired Magazine (15:10). http://www.wired.com/science/space/magazine/15-10/st_spaceport. Retrieved 2009-01-24. 
74. ^ ^{a b} Robinson-Avila (December 31, 2008). "NM Spaceport, Virgin Galactic sign 20-year lease". New Mexico Business Weekly. http://www.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/stories/2008/12/29/daily19.html. Retrieved 2009-01-24. 
75. ^ ^{a b} "First Commercial Spaceport Gets Green Light". Discovery Channel. December 19, 2008. http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/12/19/spaceport-commercial.html. Retrieved 2009-01-24. 
76. ^ UP Aerospace does launches ‘quickly and cheaply’, DenverBiz Journal, October 2008 [7]
77. ^ "News Release 03.04.2008 / Spaceport Sweden and Virgin Galactic". http://www.virgingalactic.com/htmlsite/news.php. Retrieved 2008-06-26. 
78. ^ Le Nouveau-Mexique abolit la peine de mort [archive] in Le Monde of March 19 2009
79. ^ NM Secretary of State's Office official web site
80. ^ NM Attorney General's Office official web site
81. ^ NM State Auditor's Office official web site
82. ^ NM State Lands official web site
83. ^ NM State Treasuer's Office official web site
84. ^ Venture Capitals
85. ^ "High Hopes: Altitude Training for Swimmers", by Michael Scott, SwimmingworldMagazine.com magazine archives[8] (10-15-08)

Further reading

Llano Estacado caprock at Sunrise

• Hubert Howe Bancroft. The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Vol. XVII. (History of Arizona and New Mexico 1530-1888) (1889); reprint 1962. online edition
• Warren Beck. Historical Atlas of New Mexico 1969.
• Thomas E. Chavez, An Illustrated History of New Mexico, 267 pages, University of New Mexico Press 2002, ISBN 0-8263-3051-7
• Joseph G. Dawdon III. Doniphan's Epic March; The 1st Missouri Volunteers in the Mexican War, Kansas Press [9]
• Richard Ellis, ed. New Mexico Past and Present: A Historical Reader. 1971. primary sources
• Lynne Marie Getz; Schools of Their Own: The Education of Hispanos in New Mexico, 1850-1940 (1997)
• Erlinda Gonzales-Berry, David R. Maciel, editors, The Contested Homeland: A Chicano History of New Mexico, 314 pages - University of New Mexico Press 2000, ISBN 0-8263-2199-2
• Nancie L. González; The Spanish-Americans of New Mexico: A Heritage of Pride (1969)
• Ramón A. Gutiérrez; When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sexuality, and Power in New Mexico, 1500-1846 (1991)
• Paul L. Hain; F. Chris Garcia, Gilbert K. St. Clair; New Mexico Government 3rd ed. (1994)
• Tony Hillerman, The Great Taos Bank Robbery and other Indian Country Affairs, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1973, trade paperback, 147 pages, (ISBN 0-8263-0530-X), stories
• Jack E. Holmes, Politics in New Mexico (1967),
• Paul Horgan, Great River, The Rio Grande in North American History, 1038 pages, Wesleyan University Press 1991, 4th Reprint, ISBN 0585380147, Pulitzer Prize 1955
• Sante Fe Trail: 72 References Kansas Historical Society [10]
• Robert W. Kern, Labor in New Mexico: Strikes, Unions, and Social History, 1881-1981, University of New Mexico Press 1983, ISBN 0-8263-0675-6
• Howard R. Lamar; The Far Southwest, 1846-1912: A Territorial History (1966, repr 2000)
• Robert W. Larson, New Mexico's Quest for Statehood, 1846-1912 (1968)
• John M. Nieto-Phillips, The Language of Blood: The Making of Spanish-American Identity in New Mexico, 1880s-1930s, University of New Mexico Press 2004, ISBN 08236324231
• Marc Simmons, New Mexico: An Interpretive History, 221 pages, University of New Mexico Press 1988, ISBN 0-8263-1110-5
• George I. Sánchez; Forgotten People: A Study of New Mexicans (1940; reprint 1996)
• Marc Simmons, New Mexico: An Interpretive History, 221 pages, University of New Mexico Press 1988, ISBN 0-8263-1110-5, good introduction
• Ferenc M. Szasz; and Richard W. Etulain; Religion in Modern New Mexico (1997)
• David J. Weber, The Mexican Frontier, 1821-1846: The American Southwest under Mexico (1982)
• David J. Weber; Foreigners in Their Native Land: Historical Roots of the Mexican Americans (1973), primary sources to 1912

External links

Find more about New Mexico on Wikipedia's sister projects:

Definitions from Wiktionary
Textbooks from Wikibooks
Quotations from Wikiquote
Source texts from Wikisource
Images and media from Commons
News stories from Wikinews
Learning resources from Wikiversity

State Government

• New Mexico Government
  • New Mexico's Blue Book On-Line - State of New Mexico, Secretary of State (print almanac of statistics and information)
  • Bureau of Elections New Mexico Major and Minor Political Parties
• New Mexico State Databases - Annotated list of searchable databases produced by New Mexico state agencies and compiled by the Government Documents Roundtable of the American Library Association.
• Bureau of Business and Economic Research (BBER) at University of New Mexico (statistical information about the New Mexico economy)

U.S. Government

• Energy Profile for New Mexico- Economic, environmental, and energy data
• New Mexico - Science In Your Backyard - United States Geological Society
• "American Southwest" - Discover Our Shared Heritage travel itinerary - National Park Service
• New Mexico dataset - United States Census Bureau
• New Mexico state facts - Economic Research Service - United States Department of Agriculture

Directory

• New Mexico at the Open Directory Project

Tourism

• New Mexico travel guide from Wikitravel

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Preceded by Oklahoma

List of U.S. states by date of statehood Admitted on January 6, 1912 (47th)

Succeeded by Arizona

Coordinates: 34°N 106°W / 34°N 106°W / 34; -106

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - New Mexico

Français (French)
n. - Nouveau-Mexique

Deutsch (German)
n. - New Mexico

Português (Portuguese)
n. - Nova México

Español (Spanish)
n. - Nuevo México

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
新墨西哥州

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 新墨西哥州

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮ניו מקסיקו‬

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