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Exploring Mexico: A Quiz on Culture, Geography, and History

Test your knowledge about Mexico's culture, geography, and history with this engaging quiz. Explore indigenous languages, population statistics, and significant events in Mexican history.

#Mexico #Culture #Geography #History #Indigenous Languages #Population #Sports #Academia

1 Most of these names come from indigenous languages like ________.

2 The north of Mexico is known for its ________, goat and ostrich production and meat dishes, in particular the well-known Arrachera cut.

3 What is the population of Mexico?

4 The most important professional ________ league is the Liga Nacional de Baloncesto Profesional and covers the whole Mexican territory, where the Soles de Mexicali are the current champions.

5 This sound, as well as the ________ /ʒ/, represented by a j, evolved into a voiceless velar fricative /x/ during the sixteenth century.

6 For example, many cities in the north like Monterrey, ________, and Mexicali experience temperatures of 40 °C (104 °F) or more in summer.

7 In 2000, after 71 years, the PRI lost a presidential election to ________ of the opposition National Action Party (PAN).

8 Who of the following is/was the leader of Mexico?

9 Which of the following titles did Mexico have?

10 In 1959, the ________ (Academia Mexicana de Ciencias) was established as a non-governmental, non-profit organization of distinguished scientists.

💡 Interesting Facts

  • the Classic Maya archaeological site of Yaxchilan, on the Mexican border with Guatemala, is known for its preserved sculpted lintels (example pictured) detailing the dynastic history of the city.
  • the Terminal Classic Puuc Maya site of Sayil (pictured) in Mexico is known for its terraced palace that gives the impression of a three-story building.
  • the Mexican actress Leticia Palma's dispute with Jorge Negrete led to the end of a career described as "one of the most interesting presences" of the cinema of Mexico.
  • the Maya archaeological site of Xlapak (pictured) in Mexico features well-preserved examples of the ostentatious Puuc style of architecture.
  • the number-one song "Cómo Fuí a Enamorarme de Tí" was also used as the title of a movie starring Mexican band Los Bukis.
  • the England football squad for the 1986 World Cup in Mexico contained two players called Gary Stevens.
  • the hallucinogenic mushroom Psilocybe naematoliformis (pictured) was first discovered in a tropical rain forest in the Uxpanapa Region of Veracruz, in southeastern Mexico.
  • the Mexican Green Party has run an advertising campaign to promote the restoration of capital punishment in Mexico.
  • the Mexican government offers rewards of 30 million pesos for information leading to the arrest of the leaders of various drug trafficking cartels, such as the Beltrán-Leyva brothers.
  • the Basilica of San Albino was established in Mexico, but is currently located in New Mexico.
  • the Chontal Maya of Tabasco, Mexico consider themselves the direct descendents of the Olmec civilization.
  • the rodent Oryzomys peninsulae had only been found alongside one Mexican river, which no longer exists.
  • the pre-Columbian ruins of Teopanzolco in Mexico are said to have been rediscovered during the Mexican Revolution when an artillery emplacement shook loose some dirt from the stonework.
  • the Mexican town of Tlalmanalco has one of the few remaining intact open-air chapels (pictured) built for native people who would not enter churches.
  • the minesweeper USS Threat was transferred to the government of Mexico after being decommissioned by the US Navy and renamed the Francisco Zarco.
  • the Chilean wine grape Pais is believed to have descended from the "common black grape" that the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés brought to Mexico in 1520.
  • the Chicana artist Yolanda Lopez became famous with the painting "Virgen de Guadalupe", which represents Lopez's personal investigation into Virgen de Guadalupe's status in Mexican society.
  • in Ayapango, Mexico, older homes have names that are displayed on plaques.
  • in a bid to get his name in the Guinness Book of World Records, child bullfighter Michelito Lagravere killed six bulls in a single fight in a bullring in Mérida, Mexico.
  • in 1976 socialist Jorge Cruickshank García became the first opposition senator of Mexico since the emergence of the Institutional Revolutionary Party as the ruling party.
  • five states have declared independence during the territorial history of Mexico, and all but Texas returned to Mexico.
  • during spring training in 1997, Mexican baseball player Tavo Alvarez was mistakenly introduced as Taco Alvarez.
  • every December 11 in Acatlán de Juárez, Jalisco, Mexico, bonfires are lit along the streets to commemorate the vision of Our Lady of Guadalupe to Juan Diego.
  • in the 1920s and '30s, various countries such as Mexico, Brazil and Chile issued Art Deco stamps.
  • in the Mexican state of Hidalgo there is a community that claims to be descended from Sephardi Jews who migrated to New Spain in the 16th century.
  • rains from Tropical Storm Lester (pictured) triggered a mudslide that temporarily buried a man in Mexico.
  • the 1859 McLane-Ocampo Treaty would have given the United States extensive free trade and transit rights across Mexico and the right of military intervention, in exchange for a $4 million loan to the Benito Juarez government then fighting a civil war, but was never ratified by Congress.
  • one day after Mexican soldier Melquisedet Angulo Córdova was honored as a hero at his funeral, his mother and three relatives were gunned down in retaliation by drug cartel hitmen.
  • on June 14, 1835, USRC Ingham became the first United States warship to engage a Mexican ship in combat.
  • many Mexicans pray to a figure known as Saint Death.
  • more hurricanes have struck the Baja California peninsula than anywhere else in Mexico.
  • the Coalition of Workers, Peasants, and Students of the Isthmus was the first elected socialist municipal government in Mexico.
  • the Golden Barrel is a popularly cultivated cactus from Mexico.
  • the important Early Classic Mesoamerican city of Montana, in Guatemala, was a colony founded by the distant metropolis of Teotihuacan, in Mexico.
  • the innovative design of the pre-Columbian twin pyramid of Tenayuca (pictured) in Mexico was later used as a model for the temples of the Aztecs.
  • the first time slavery was abolished in the Americas was in the Mexican state of Veracruz.
  • the eight foot stone atrium cross of the former monastery of Acolman, Mexico (pictured), is an expression of "tequiqui" or Christian art executed by Indian craftsmen.
  • the development of the Marker degradation chemical synthetic route between 1938 and 1940 established Mexico as a world center for steroid production.
  • the early pre-Columbian site of Xochitecatl in Mexico was abandoned for centuries after the Popocatepetl volcano erupted around 150 AD.
  • the modern Mexican state of Tlaxcala was born when the chief of the old Tlaxcala kingdom struck a deal with Hernán Cortés.
  • the name of the museum Na Bolom in San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico is a pun playing on the Lacandón Maya word for house of the jaguar and the name of Danish mayanist Frans Blom, whose home it was.
  • to preserve an archeological site in Guerrero, Mexico, a tunnel was dug under it for a highway joining Acapulco with Cuernavaca.
  • when the Texan schooner Austin (pictured) led the brig Wharton and several Yucatecan ships to victory over a Mexican fleet in the Battle of Campeche in 1843, it was the only time that steam-driven warships were defeated by sailing ships.
  • the town of Otumba, Mexico, has an annual Donkey Fair where the animals feature in fashion shows and costume contests.
  • the small mountain-top Aztec temple of El Tepozteco in Mexico, dedicated to the god of pulque, an alcoholic beverage, attracted pilgrims from as far away as Guatemala.
  • the popularity of alebrijes from San Martín Tilcajete, Mexico, and other towns have led to the overexploitation of the trees from which they are carved.
  • the range of Nelson's Milksnake (Albino specimen pictured) from Mexico is linked to watercourses, and that it was thought to be the same subspecies as the more common Sinaloan Milksnake until 1978.
  • the San Juan Bautista Parish of Tenango del Aire in Mexico was initially run by the Franciscans.
  • the Guarijío of Mexico prepare an herbal tea, malo en el cuerpo (pain in the body), from Wimmeria mexicana, chamomile, and cilantro.
  • the Inca Dove is a small New World dove that ranges from the southwestern United States and Mexico through Central America to Costa Rica.
  • the Plaza Historic District was the historic center of Los Angeles in the days of Spanish and Mexican rule.
  • the lime-green waxy cap has a limited geographical distribution, having been collected only in California and Mexico.
  • the Guatemalan Black Howler and Mantled Howler monkeys are sympatric over parts of Mexico and Guatemala.
  • the Flammulated Flycatcher (pictured), a tyrant flycatcher endemic to Mexico, was eventually placed in the monotypic genus Deltarhynchus because of its broad bill.
  • the Grutas de Cacahuamilpa National Park in Mexico includes one of the largest cave systems in the world, with some openings wide enough to be used as concert halls.
  • the Mexico tropical cyclone rainfall climatology tells us that one-third of the annual rainfall along the Mexican Riviera, and up to one-half of the annual rainfall within Baja California Sur, is due to tropical cyclones moving up Mexico's west coast.
  • the P'urhépecha language isolate of Mexico is one of only two Mesoamerican languages not to have a phonemic glottal stop and that it has more than 160 affixes, 13 tenses and 6 modes.
  • the United States Academic Decathlon National Championships have featured teams from Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, South Korea, Northern Ireland and Brazil.
  • the Libellus de Medicinalibus Indorum Herbis, a book of Aztec herbal remedies in Latin, was returned to Mexico by Pope John Paul II after more than four centuries of changing hands in Europe.
  • the tianguis market is a Mexican tradition which comes mostly unchanged from the pre-Hispanic era.
  • the Rufous-crowned Sparrow, a medium-sized sparrow of the southwestern United States and Mexico, has a subspecies endemic to the Todos Santos Islands that has not been seen since the 1970s.
  • the Palacio de Cultura Banamex in Mexico City was the site where Agustín de Iturbide accepted the offer to become Mexico's first emperor after the war of independence from Spain.
  • the Port of Lázaro Cárdenas is the largest seaport in Mexico, handling 20,860,647 tonnes of cargo in 2008.
  • despite being unfinished, the Lazaro Cardenas Dam successfully protected the Mexican towns of Gómez Palacio and Torreón from possible flooding triggered by Hurricane Naomi in 1968.
  • at the time he was appointed Governor of Arizona Territory, C. Meyer Zulick was a prisoner in Mexico.
  • Carmen Boullosa is a leading Mexican novelist, poet, and playwright whose award-winning play Teatro herético satirically addresses the issue of gender roles.
  • Chicanismo is a cultural movement by Mexican Americans to recapture their Mexican, Native American culture, which began in the 1930s in the Southwestern United States.
  • Carlos Monsiváis, who was a Mexican political activist and journalist, won more than 33 awards during his lifetime.
  • Almoloya del Río, a Mexican small town with the population of 7,992, hosts an international biker rally every year.
  • British actress Jacqueline Voltaire won a "most bizarre sex scene" award in 2005 for her performance in the Mexican film Matando Cabos.
  • masked Mexican professional wrestler Metro is sponsored by the major Mexico City newspaper "Metro" and has the paper's logo on his tights.
  • Ruby Bundleflower, an abundant weed in parts of Mexico, produces beans used in salsa.
  • Emilio Carranza was known as "the Lindbergh of Mexico".
  • Hurricane Madeline caused major damage to Mexico in 1976.
  • Juan Davis Bradburn, commander of the Mexican fort at Anahuac, was described as "incompetent to such a command and ... half crazy part of his time".
  • Hurricane Greg caused one of Mexico's highest rainfall totals from a Pacific hurricane.
  • Hurricane Alma (pictured) was the first of three consecutive tropical cyclones to strike the Pacific coast of Mexico during a ten day span.
  • Gabriel Vargas became a chief draftsman by age 16 and went on to win the Mexican "Premio Nacional de Ciencias y Artes (National Sciences and Arts Prize)".
  • Hondo Creek, a tributary of the Frio River in Texas, was the site of both an 1842 battle between the Republic of Texas and Mexico, and an 1866 Indian attack.
  • Soviet film director Sergei Eisenstein (pictured) shot many miles of film in Mexico with the backing of American author Upton Sinclair to make ¡Qué viva México!.
  • Russian native Emilio Kosterlitzky, known as the Mexican Cossack, spoke nine languages, jumped ship in Venezuela, fled to Mexico where he fought in the Apache Wars and in the Mexican Revolution, and eventually became an undercover operative for the U.S. government during World War I.
  • empresario James Power was notified of the Mexican land grant offerings by the "Father of Texas" Stephen F. Austin.
  • Mexican pilot Alberto Braniff was the first pilot to fly a plane over Mexico City.
  • Cherokee Chief J. B. Milam funded an expedition to Mexico in 1939 to find the grave of Sequoyah, the inventor of the Cherokee writing system.
  • Charlotte of Belgium (pictured) reigned as Empress of Mexico starting in 1864.
  • 1,468 fauna species are found within the protected area of Laguna de Términos, located in southeastern Mexico.
  • California Gold Rush-era bandit and highwayman Jack Powers, after being run out of several cities by vigilantes, was murdered in Mexico and his body fed to hogs.
  • Mexican professional wrestler La Sombra made his in-ring debut at the age of thirteen.
  • Mexican soprano Ángela Peralta once sang Donizetti's opera Maria di Rohan in a theatre improvised from a disused sand pit in La Paz, Baja California.
  • Mexico's National Fund for the Development of Arts and Crafts or FONART directly assisted 26,600 Mexican artisans in 2006.
  • Mexico's largest pawnbroker, Nacional Monte de Piedad, is legally recognized as a charity.
  • Mexican writer Juan José Arreola's short story The Switchman can be interpreted as a satire of the Mexican train system.
  • Mexican singer-actor Antonio Aguilar made over 150 albums and 150 movies in his career.
  • Mexican bandit Chucho el Roto has been compared to Robin Hood.
  • Mexican masked professional wrestler La Parka is the second man to wrestle under this ring name.
  • MASA, formed in 1959, was the second-largest manufacturer of buses in Mexico when it was acquired in 1998 by Volvo.
  • Narciso Bassols founded Mexico's first systematic sex education program while Secretary of Public Education.
  • Mexican singer Edith Márquez received a gold certification in Mexico for an album that includes a cover of the number-one song "Tengo Todo Excepto a Tí".
  • Patrick Murphy tried to help rebels in Naco, Mexico, by dropping homemade suitcase bombs from his airplane.
  • Doña Rosa Real discovered how to make Barro negro pottery in San Bartolo Coyotepec, a small town in southern Mexico.
  • British and American mountain men who met at Mountain Green, Utah in 1825 argued over rights to the land, which was actually Mexican territory.
  • The Visitors is the only opera Mexican composer Carlos Chávez ever scored.
  • Tricholoma ustaloides (pictured), generally considered an inedible species of mushroom, is consumed by inhabitants of some Mexican communities.
  • a cult in Mexico venerates "Santa Muerte" (pictured), who is condemned by the local Catholic Church.
  • about 63 dams with a capacity of over 100 million cubic metres account for 95% of the water storage capacity of Mexico.
  • archaeologists at the El Manatí Olmec site have not only found the earliest rubber balls yet discovered and the earliest wooden artifacts in Mexico, but also the skeletons, femurs, and crania of human infants.
  • as General Secretary of the Mexican railroad workers union, Demetrio Vallejo renounced his salary of 20,000 pesos a month, requesting it be turned over to the railway union treasury.
  • apart from the Basilica of Guadalupe, the Sanctuary of Chalma (pictured) in Malinalco is the most visited shrine in Mexico.
  • although a quiet town now, Cuilapan de Guerrero, Mexico, was a major pre-Hispanic city and the site of a major Dominican monastery.
  • although Aniceto Ortega had a distinguished career as a physician and surgeon in Mexico, he is also remembered today for his 1871 opera Guatimotzin.
  • although Esenbeckia runyonii is common in parts of Mexico's Sierra Madre Oriental, the type specimen was collected from a disjunct population of trees in the Rio Grande Valley, Texas.
  • Pinguicula elizabethiae and P. orchidioides (pictured), two rosette-forming herbs found in Mexico, eat insects.
  • Mustelus hacat is a species of smooth-hound shark discovered in 2003 in the Sea of Cortez, off the coast of Mexico.
  • Selva Zoque is the largest intact tropical rainforest in Mexico, an important but threatened ecological area.
  • Silvestre S. Herrera is the only living person authorized to wear both the U.S. Medal of Honor and Mexico's equivalent "Premier Merito Militar".
  • Salvador Toscano Barragán was Mexico's first filmmaker.
  • Rini Templeton created works of graphic art for the New Mexico Land-Grant movement before moving to Mexico to collaborate with the Labor movement there.
  • Otomi grammar, the grammar of the indigenous Otomi language of Mexico has traits of active/stative alignment, but has no adjectives.
  • Raul Macias, a Cuban-Mexican boxer parlayed his popularity into a successful career in telenovelas.
  • The Paperboys are an award-winning Canadian folk music band that blends Celtic folk with Bluegrass, Mexican, Eastern European, African, zydeco, soul and country influences.
  • Tlacolula de Matamoros is home to one of the oldest, largest and busiest weekly outdoor markets in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico.
  • Yohl Ik'nal, queen of the Classic Period Maya city of Palenque in Mexico, was the first known female Mayan ruler.
  • Ageratina adenophora, a plant native to Mexico which has invaded Australia, India and the United States, causes respiratory failure called "blowing disease" in horses.
  • Xaltocan, an island in Mexico, means "sandy ground of spiders" in Nahuatl.
  • Vicente Leñero, a prominent Mexican novelist, journalist and playwright, was a screenwriter for El Crimen del Padre Amaro, one of Mexico's all-time highest grossing films.
  • Toniná in Mexico (pyramid pictured) was one of the last of the Classic Period Maya cities to fall into ruin.
  • Tropical Storm Larry caused five deaths and US$53.6 million in damage when it struck the Tabasco state of Mexico, the first landfall in the state since 1973.
  • "Quién Como Tú" is the third number-one single on the Billboard Top Latin Songs chart for Mexican singer-songwriter Ana Gabriel.
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