I’ve spend the last few weeks researching the territorial evolution of Mexici’s federal states and territories. And as I read more into the matter, I cannot help but find myself thinking that the evolution of the country’s subdivisions became increasingly....artificial or (IMO) irrational. Whilst states like Aguascalientes and Campeche came about more or less as a result of the Centralistt versus Federalist struggle and Caste War, respectively, other entities, like the State of Morelos and the delineation of its borders seems less apparent and rational in nature. Other weird quirks include;
- The emergence of Querétaro as a separate state without any apparent reason;
- The failed project to create the ‘State of Iturbide’ cantered around Tampico abd which is roughly analogous with the modern
- ‘State of La Huasteca’ movement;
- The erection of the Sierra Gorda abd Isla del Carnen Territoriies by Santa Ana for no apparent reason apart from maybe rewarding his supporters. Unlike the Tehuantepec territory/department there was no apparent economic reasonining for their existence as far as I can tell;
- The separation of Sonora and Sinaloa due to Yaqui natives not wanting to pay taxes;
- The partitioning of Baja California into North and South;
- The union and then dissolution of Coahuila and Nuevo León;
- The erection of the Tepic Territory and eventually the State of Nayarit...
...and so on. This is coupled with such things as weird border delimitation in for example the Mexican Plateau, where - as Jycee pointed out in his ‘Mexican Victory 2.0’ timeline - various states are forced to share several water basins due to merely political reasons. Other examples from Jycee’s excellent (and sadly long finished) timeline, such as the different border for OTL’s Guerrero and the transformation of the Tuxpan district into the State of Poza Rica complete the picture.
To sum things up: I am a bit baffled and/or stuck in regards to Mexico’s territorial organization and subdivisions. Apart from the clear vestiges of the New Spain era a good chunk of them don’t seem to make much sense. If anyone can help paint a clearer picture in regards to some of the quirks I outlined or the situation in general, I would be more than grateful.
Conversely, I’m wondering what would make sense from a clean sheet of paper in terms of states and their drlinitations. This thought is based partly on Jycedme’s timeline and partially on a post a while back on the post 1900s board regarding ‘sane’ Länder borders for Germany based on geography, economics abd population. Germany’s states were rearranged to create a political balance after WW2, abd I wonder what something similair would look like for Mexico
P.S. Apologies if this is in the wrong place or anything. I’ve been lurking on this site for years but never bothered to register until now.