Mexico - Administrative Divisions

Administrative Divisions

The United Mexican States are a federation of thirty-one free and sovereign states, which form a union that exercises a degree of jurisdiction over the Federal District and other territories.

Each state has its own constitution, congress, and a judiciary, and its citizens elect by direct voting a governor for a six-year term, and representatives to their respective unicameral state congresses for three-year terms.

The Federal District is a special political division that belongs to the federation as a whole and not to a particular state, and as such, has more limited local rule than the nation's states.

The states are divided into municipalities, the smallest administrative political entity in the country, governed by a mayor or municipal president (Presidente municipal), elected by its residents by plurality.