The Central Mexican Plateau, also known as the Mexican Altiplano ( es, Altiplanicie Mexicana), is a large arid-to-semiarid

plateau In geology and physical geography, a plateau (; ; ), also called a high plain or a tableland, is an area of a highland consisting of flat terrain that is raised sharply above the surrounding area on at least one side. Often one or more sides ...

that occupies much of northern and central

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

. Averaging above sea level, it extends from the United States border in the north to the

Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt The Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt ( es, Eje Volcánico Transversal), also known as the Transvolcanic Belt and locally as the (''Snowy Mountain Range''), is an active volcanic belt that covers central-southern Mexico. Several of its highest peaks h ...

in the south, and is bounded by the and to the west and east, respectively. A low east-west mountain range in the state of

Zacatecas , image_map = Zacatecas in Mexico (location map scheme).svg , map_caption = State of Zacatecas within Mexico , coordinates = , coor_pinpoint = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type ...

divides the plateau into northern and southern sections. These two sections, called the Northern Plateau () and Central Plateau (), are now generally regarded by geographers as sections of one plateau. The Mexican Plateau is mostly covered by

deserts and xeric shrublands Deserts and xeric shrublands are a biome defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature. Deserts and xeric (ancient Greek xērós, “dry") shrublands form the largest terrestrial biome, covering 19% of Earth's land surface area. Ecoregions in this h ...

, with pine-oak forests covering the surrounding mountain ranges and forming

sky island Sky islands are isolated mountains surrounded by radically different lowland environments. The term originally referred to those found on the Mexican Plateau, and has extended to similarly isolated high-elevation forests. The isolation has s ...

s on some of the interior ranges. The Mexican Altiplano is one of six distinct physiographic sections of the

Basin and Range Province The Basin and Range Province is a vast physiographic region covering much of the inland Western United States and northwestern Mexico. It is defined by unique basin and range topography, characterized by abrupt changes in elevation, alternating ...

, which in turn is part of the

Intermontane Plateaus In the context of physical geography, the Intermontane Plateaus is one of eight physiographic regions of the contiguous United States. The region consists mostly of plateaus and mountain ranges lying between the Rocky Mountains on the east and t ...

physiographic division. In

phytogeography Phytogeography (from Greek φυτόν, ''phytón'' = "plant" and γεωγραφία, ''geographía'' = "geography" meaning also distribution) or botanical geography is the branch of biogeography that is concerned with the geographic distribution ...

, the

Sonoran Desert The Sonoran Desert ( es, Desierto de Sonora) is a desert in North America and ecoregion that covers the northwestern Mexican states of Sonora, Baja California, and Baja California Sur, as well as part of the southwestern United States (in Ariz ...

is within the Sonoran

Floristic Province A phytochorion, in phytogeography, is a geographic area with a relatively uniform composition of plant species. Adjacent phytochoria do not usually have a sharp boundary, but rather a soft one, a transitional area in which many species from both r ...

of the

Madrean Region The Madrean Region (named after the Sierra Madre Occidental) is a floristic region within the Holarctic Kingdom in North America, as delineated by Armen Takhtajan and Robert F. Thorne. It occupies arid or semiarid areas in the southwestern Unite ...

in southwestern North America, part of the

Holarctic Kingdom The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often voc ...

of the northern

Western Hemisphere The Western Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth that lies west of the prime meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and east of the antimeridian. The other half is called the Eastern Hemisphere. Politically, the te ...

. While the plateau stretches from north to south, the southern east-west arc of the Central Mexican Plateau from Jalisco to Veracruz states historically as well as today has served as the population nexus of the Mexican nation, it is home to its biggest metro areas of Guadalajara, León, Querétaro,

Morelia Morelia (; from 1545 to 1828 known as Valladolid) is a city and municipal seat of the municipality of Morelia in the north-central part of the state of Michoacán in central Mexico. The city is in the Guayangareo Valley and is the capital and lar ...

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital city, capital and primate city, largest city of Mexico, and the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North Amer ...

Toluca Toluca , officially Toluca de Lerdo , is the state capital of the State of Mexico as well as the seat of the Municipality of Toluca. With a population of 910,608 as of the 2020 census, Toluca is the fifth most populous city in Mexico. The city f ...

Cuernavaca Cuernavaca (; nci-IPA, Cuauhnāhuac, kʷawˈnaːwak "near the woods", ) is the capital and largest city of the state of Morelos in Mexico. The city is located around a 90-minute drive south of Mexico City using the Federal Highway 95D. The na ...

, and Puebla.

Geography

The Mesa del Norte or northern plateau averages in elevation

above mean sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance ( height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as '' orthometric heights''. Th ...

and extends south from the Rio Grande (Río Bravo del Norte) through the states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango,

and San Luis Potosí. Various narrow, isolated ridges cross the Mesa del Norte and numerous depressions also dot the region, the largest of which is the Bolsón de Mapimí. The Río Bravo del Norte and its tributary, the

Río Conchos The Río Conchos (Conchos River) is a large river in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. It joins the Río Bravo del Norte (known in the United States as the Rio Grande) at the town of Ojinaga, Chihuahua. Description The Rio Conchos is the main r ...

, drain portions of the northern plateau, and the Río Pánuco and its tributaries drain the southeastern corner. Both drain to the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United ...

. Much of the northern plateau comprises internal drainage basins that do not drain to the sea. The

Chihuahuan Desert The Chihuahuan Desert ( es, Desierto de Chihuahua, ) is a desert ecoregion designation covering parts of northern Mexico and the southwestern United States. It occupies much of far West Texas, the middle to lower Rio Grande Valley and the lo ...

extends across the northern portion of the northern plateau, while the Meseta Central matorral covers the central portion, and the

Central Mexican matorral The Central Mexican matorral is an ecoregion of the deserts and xeric shrublands biome of central Mexico. It is the southernmost ecoregion of the Nearctic realm. Geography The Central Mexican matorral covers an area of on the southern portion o ...

extends from the southern portion of the northern plateau across the southern plateau. The Mesa Central or southern plateau is higher than its northern counterpart, averaging in elevation. The southern plateau contains numerous valleys originally formed by ancient lakes. It extends across the states of Aguascalientes, Jalisco,

, Guanajuato, Querétaro, and Michoacán. Several of Mexico's most prominent cities, including Guadalajara, are located in the valleys of the southern plateau. Much of the southern plateau is drained by the

Río Grande de Santiago The Río Grande de Santiago, or Santiago River, is a river in western Mexico. It flows westwards from Lake Chapala via Ocotlán through the states of Jalisco and Nayarit to empty into the Pacific Ocean. It one of the longest rivers in Mexico, ...

and its tributaries, including the Río Lerma, which drain west into the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...

. Tributaries of the Río Pánuco drain the eastern portion of the southern plateau. The Central Mexican matorral covers much of the southern plateau, with the subtropical

Bajío dry forests The Bajío dry forests is a tropical dry broadleaf forest ecoregion in western−central Mexico. Geography The Bajío dry forests lie in the southwestern portion of the Mexican Plateau. They are bounded on the southeast, south, and southwest by ...

occupying the lower portions of the Lerma–Río Grande de Santiago basin. Higher altitudes are covered by pine–oak woodlands, with oak woodlands and forests at lower elevations, and mixed pine–oak and conifer forests up to the tree line of the volcanoes that surround the southern and western edges.

References

* * Ricketts, Taylor H., Eric Dinerstein, David M. Olson, Colby J. Loucks, et al. (1999). ''Terrestrial Ecoregions of North America: a Conservation Assessment.'' Island Press, Washington DC.

External links

Mexican Plateau, Mexico City Region
Image Science and Analysis Laboratory, NASA-Johnson Space Center. 18 Mar. 2005. ''Earth from Space - Image Information''. {{Geography topics Plateaus of Mexico Basin and Range Province Floristic regions Madrean Region Natural regions Physiographic regions of Mexico Physiographic sections Geography of Mesoamerica Landforms of Chihuahua (state) Landforms of Coahuila Landforms of Durango Landforms of Zacatecas Landforms of San Luis Potosí Landforms of Aguascalientes Landforms of Jalisco Landforms of Michoacán Landforms of Guanajuato Landforms of Querétaro Landforms of the State of Mexico Landforms of Hidalgo (state) Landforms of Mexico City