page_title: Demographics of Mexico
section_title: Metropolitan areas
hierarchical_section_title: Demographics of Mexico / Cities and metropolitan areas / Metropolitan areas
caption_attribution_description: Fronteira Tijuana - San Diego
context_page_description: With a population of about 126 million in 2019, Mexico is the 10th most populated country in the world. It is the most populous Spanish-speaking country and the third-most populous in the Americas after the United States and Brazil. Throughout most of the twentieth century Mexico's population was characterized by rapid growth. Although this tendency has been reversed and average annual population growth over the last five years was less than 1%, the demographic transition is still in progress, and Mexico still has a large cohort of youths. The most populous city in the country is the capital, Mexico City, with a population of 8.9 million, and its metropolitan area is also the most populated with 20.1 million. Approximately 50% of the population lives in one of the 55 large metropolitan areas in the country. In total, about 78.84% of the population of the country lives in urban areas, meaning that only 21.16% live in rural areas.
  The Census Inegi in Mexico is the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía. The National Population Council, is an institution under the Secretary of the Interior in charge of the analysis and research of population dynamics.
context_section_description: A metropolitan area in Mexico is defined to be the group of municipalities that heavily interact with each other, usually around a core city. In 2004, a joint effort between CONAPO, INEGI and the Ministry of Social Development (SEDESOL) agreed to define metropolitan areas as either:
  the group of two or more municipalities in which a city with a population of at least 50,000 is located whose urban area extends over the limit of the municipality that originally contained the core city incorporating either physically or under its area of direct influence other adjacent predominantly urban municipalities all of which have a high degree of social and economic integration or are relevant for urban politics and administration; or
  a single municipality in which a city of a population of at least one million is located and fully contained, (that is, it does not transcend the limits of a single municipality); or
  a city with a population of at least 250,000 which forms a conurbation with other cities in the United States of America.
  In 2004 there were 55 metropolitan areas in Mexico, in which close to 53% of the country's population lives. The most populous metropolitan area in Mexico is the Metropolitan Area of the Valley of Mexico, or Greater Mexico City, which in 2005 had a population of 19.23 million, or 19% of the nation's population. The next four largest metropolitan areas in Mexico are Greater Guadalajara (4.1 million), Greater Monterrey (3.7 million), Greater Puebla (2.1 million) and Greater Toluca (1.6 million), whose added population, along with Greater Mexico City, is equivalent to 30% of the nation's population. Greater Mexico City was the fastest growing metropolitan area in the country since the 1930s until the late 1980s. Since then, the country has slowly become economically and demographically less centralized. From 2000 to 2005 the average annual growth rate of Greater Mexico City was the lowest of the five largest metropolitan areas, whereas the fastest growing metropolitan area was Puebla (2.0%) followed by Monterrey (1.9%), Toluca (1.8%) and Guadalajara (1.8%).
caption: Transnational step of Metropolitan area of San Diego-Tijuana to the northwest of the country.
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