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Map of New Mexico (NM)


Hoodoos at Ah-Shi-Sle-Pah Wilderness Area
Hoodoos (tent rocks) at Ah-Shi-Sle-Pah Wilderness Area. The water-scarce badland area of rolling water-carved clay hills is located in northwestern New Mexico.
Image: John Fowler
 
New Mexico Flag
New Mexico State Flag
 
 

About New Mexico


Location map of New Mexico state USA
Where in the United States is New Mexico? Location map of New Mexico in the US.

 
New Mexico is a landlocked state in the Mountain Division of the southwestern United States. It borders (clockwise) Colorado to the north, Oklahoma and Texas to the east, the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Sonora in the south, and Arizona in the west.


Some History
Native Americans inhabited the territory of what is now New Mexico for thousands of years. Clovis, Folsom, Cochise, Anasazi, and Pueblo Indian societies successive called the land their home.

For more than two centuries, Santa Fe de Nuevo México was a province of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, the Spanish possessions in Central and North America. It became a territory of Mexico that gained independence from Spain in 1821.

In 1846 United States forces invaded and occupied New Mexico. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the war between the United States and Mexico in 1848. The treaty significantly expanded US territory. The amount of land gained by the United States increased further by the Gadsden Purchase of 1853-54, which added parts of present-day southern Arizona and southwest New Mexico to the United States. On 6 January 1912, New Mexico finally became the 47th state of the United States.

 
New Mexico State Map
Reference Map of New Mexico
General Map of New Mexico, United States.

The detailed map shows the US state of New Mexico with boundaries, the location of the state capital Santa Fe, major cities and populated places, rivers and lakes, interstate highways, principal highways, railroads and major airports.

You are free to use the above map for educational and similar purposes; if you publish it online or in print, you need to credit Nations Online Project as the source.

 
More about New Mexico State


Area
New Mexico Topographic Regions Map
The topographic map of New Mexico shows the location of the state's mountain ranges. (click the map to enlarge)
 
New Mexico covers an area of 314,917 km² (121,590 sq mi), [1] making it the 5th largest US state. In comparison, it is about the size of Poland or slightly smaller than half the size of Texas.


Mountains of New Mexico
New Mexico is blessed with mountains; half of the country is mountainous; there are more than 80 named mountain ranges in the state. [2] The rest of the state is dominated by the Llano Estacado, one of the largest plateaus (mesas) on the North American continent, with elevations ranging from 900 m (3,000 ft) to over 1,500 m (5,000 ft) and steep slopes in the eastern, northern and western parts.

Wheeler Peak is the highest of them at 4,013 m (13,167 ft). Nearby Mount Walter is only six meters lower, so the two peaks are often confused with each other. Both mountains are part of the Sangre de Cristo Range, the southernmost mountain range of the Rocky Mountains. The Wheeler Peak Wilderness Area was established to protect local fauna and flora.

In the northwest of New Mexico is Mount Taylor (Navajo: Tsoodził), a 3,446 m tall dormant stratovolcano.
Other prominent mountain ranges are the Sacramento Mountains, the San Andres Mountains, the Black Range, the Chuska and the Zuni Mountains.


Main Rivers
Principal rivers are the Rio Grande (Great River), New Mexico's longest river, and the third-longest in the USA. The Pecos River has its source near Santa Fe and flows over 1490 km through the eastern part of New Mexico.



Dunes at White Sands National Monument, New Mexico
Don't mistake the sight of White Sands for snow; it is gypsum sand. The Tularosa Basin in southern New Mexico is home to one of the world's greatest natural wonders: dunes of brilliant white gypsum crystals in the White Sands National Monument.
Image: US National Park Service
 
Best of New Mexico


New Mexico is nicknamed the "Land of Enchantment," and its landscape appropriately offers a variety of amazing sights.

From the footprints of ancient Pueblo societies to a connection to the stars at the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array Radio Astronomy Observatory.

New Mexico's scenery offers heavily forested mountain wildernesses, inhospitable white deserts and snow-capped peaks; there are Aztec Ruins, the Gila Cliff Dwellings and petroglyphs in New Mexico's West Mesa.

Due to its impressive landscape, tourism is one of the main pillars of New Mexico's economy.



New Mexico for travelers
Highlights on a tourist's itinerary for New Mexico are:


  • Santa Fe, the capital of New Mexico, is considered one of the world's great art cities and is recognized by UNESCO's Creative Cities Network. The city is known for Native American arts and crafts such as jewelry, pottery and weaving. Santa Fe is also known to be the highest state capital in the US; it lies 2,194 m above sea level in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
  • Dunes at White Sands National Monument, New Mexico
    Snowy Shiprock, the impressive "mountain with wings" located in Navajo Territory in New Mexico's San Juan County, is a popular subject for photographers.
    Image: Larry Lamsa
     
    Albuquerque lies in the shadow of the Sandia Mountains on the Rio Grande; New Mexico's largest city is 1,619 m (5,312 ft) above sea level. Albuquerque was a stopover on the El Camino Real, a trade route that ran between Mexico City in colonial Mexico and Santa Fe. The city is home to Petroglyph National Monument, one of the largest petroglyph sites in North America, with thousands of prehistoric Native American drawings on volcanic rock.
  • Roswell is the United States' UFO capital; the Roswell UFO incident was named after the town. In the city you will meet many humanoid aliens who are looking for the truth behind the alien/UFO conspiracy theories. To satisfy this need, Roswell has the International UFO Museum and Research Center - with a connected gift store.
  • The White Sands National Monument displays an amazing landscape with its rare pure-white gypsum dunes in the northern Chihuahuan Desert. (https://www.nps.gov/whsa/index.htm)
  • Bandelier National Monument
    Human settlements from around 11,000 years ago. The monument protects Ancestral Pueblo archeological sites within a diverse and scenic landscape. (www.nps.gov/band/)
  • The Petroglyph National Monument, an archaeological site with thousands of prehistoric Native American drawings near Albuquerque. (https://www.nps.gov/petr/index.htm)
  • Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument in the Gila Wilderness is the best cliff dwelling ever. (https://www.nps.gov/gicl/index.htm)
  • The Aztec Ruins National Monument. The main archeological site in the national monument is a large ancestral Pueblo Great House with more than 400 rooms. (https://www.nps.gov/azru/)
  • The Capulin Volcano is an extinct scoria cone and a national monument, part of the 20,000 km² (8,000 sq mi) Raton-Clayton Volcanic Field. The extensive landscape displays small cinder cones, eruptive silicic volcanoes and occasional lava flows. (https://www.nps.gov/cavo/)
  • Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument, northeast of Albuquerque, is a geological park known for its mushroom-like rock formations and wigwam-like tent rocks. (https://www.blm.gov/visit/kktr)


 
World Heritage Sites


Pueblo Bonito in the Chaco Culture National Historical Park in New Mexico
Pueblo Bonito in the Chaco Culture National Historical Park; the center of the Chacoan world seen from the canyon rim. The Chaco people quarried sandstone blocks and transported lumber from far away; they built fifteen large urban complexes that remained the largest buildings ever constructed in North America until the 19th century.
Image: Tony Fernandez



New Mexico has not one but three outstanding UNESCO World Heritage Sites, more sites than any other US state.


1. Chaco Culture
Chaco Culture National Historical Park in San Juan and McKinley counties. The site is registered as Chaco Culture official website

Chaco Culture is a network of archaeological sites in northwestern New Mexico that preserves outstanding elements of a vast pre-Columbian cultural complex that dominated much of what is now the southwestern United States from the mid-9th to early 13th centuries.
For over 2,000 years, Pueblo peoples occupied the vast region of the southwestern United States. Chaco Canyon was a major hub of ancestral Pueblo culture between 850 and 1250 and the center for ceremonials, trade, and political activity for the prehistoric Four Corners area.

Chaco Culture National Historical Park (National Park Service https://www.nps.gov/chcu/index.htm)

On 19 August 2013, Chaco Culture National Historical Park became an International Dark Sky Park. [3]

 
2. Taos Pueblo

Ruins of an ancient Chacoan city in Chaco Culture National Historical Park in New Mexico
Ruins of an ancient Chacoan city in Chaco Culture National Historical Park in New Mexico. Pueblo Bonito on the right, Pueblo del Arroyo on the left.
Image: Google Maps (Click image to see the map)
 
Taos Pueblo official website was a Pueblo Indian settlement from the late 13th and early 14th centuries, consisting of ceremonial buildings and facilities and multi-story adobe dwellings built in terraced tiers.

The site is situated in the valley of a small tributary of the Rio Grande in northern New Mexico.

Taos Pueblo represents a significant stage in the history of urban, community, and cultural life. The settlement was a central trading point between the indigenous population along the Rio Grande and their neighbors in the northwest, the Plains Tribes.

Taos Pueblo has been continuously inhabited and is the largest of these Pueblos that still exist.


3. Carlsbad Caverns National Park

Caves in Carlsbad Caverns National Park
Carlsbad Caverns National Park.
Image: David Sanborn
 
250 million years ago, during the Permian period, the region of today Carlsbad Caverns National Park official website was the coastline of an inland sea with a plethora of marine life, whose remains formed a reef. The Permian reef deposits are now the rock formation called the Capitan Limestone. [4]
The karst landscape in the state of New Mexico comprises over 80 recognized caves. The caves are outstanding because of their size, mode of origin, and the abundance, diversity, and beauty of the rock formations within.
Geological processes within the caves continue to form rare and unique rock formations, like stalactites, stalagmites, flowstones, calcite crystals, cave popcorn (coralloids), and sinter terraces, particularly in the Lechuguilla Cave.


Carlsbad Caverns National Park, Stalactites and stalagmites in limestone chambers, ingredients to make a great tourist attraction. (www.nps.gov/cave/).



Population


The Roundhouse – New Mexico State Capitol in Santa Fe
Rendered image of New Mexico State Capitol in Santa Fe. The "Roundhouse" is the only round state capitol in the United States. The building was designed to resemble the Zia Sun Symbol when viewed from above. Click on the image to see it for yourself.
Image: Google


 
New Mexico has a population of 2 million people (in 2019); [5] it is among the least densely populated US states (rank 45).

The capital is Santa Fe; the largest city is Albuquerque; the largest urban area is the Albuquerque metropolitan area, with a population of 918,000 people.


Race and Ethnic groups
The population of New Mexico is composed of Hispanic or Latino 49.3%, Caucasian (white) 36.8%, Native American 11%, African American 2.6%, and Asian 1.8%. [6]

Spoken languages are English 64%, Spanish 28%, and Navajo 4%.


Cities and Towns in New Mexico

The map shows the location of the following cities and towns in New Mexico:

Largest cities in New Mexico with a population of more than 40,000:
Albuquerque (560,000), Las Cruces (103,000), Rio Rancho (98,000), Santa Fe (84,600), Roswell (47,600), Farmington (44,800), South Valley (41,000, part of Albuquerque Metropolitan Area)
Population figures in 2018


Airports
The largest airport in the state of New Mexico is Albuquerque International Sunport (IATA code: ABQ) in Albuquerque. The Santa Fe Regional Airport (IATA code: SAF) serves the capital.


Other cities and towns in New Mexico shown on the map:
Alamogordo, Artesia, Aztec, Belen, Bernalillo, Carlsbad, Carrizozo, Cimarron, Clayton, Clovis, Cuba, Deming, Des Moines, Espanola, Estancia, Fort Sumner, Gallup, Grants, Hatch, Hobbs, Las Vegas, Logan, Lordsburg, Los Alamos, Lovington, Mora, Mosquero, Portales, Raton, Reserve, Santa Rosa, Shiprock, Silver City, Socorro, Springer, Taos, Tierra Amarilla, Truth or Consequences, Tucumcari, Vaughn, and Zuni.

Downtown Albuquerque, largest city in New Mexico
Downtown Albuquerque - the largest city in New Mexico is located in the north-central part of the state. The city is home to the state's flagship university, the University of New Mexico.
Image: Mike Tungate

 

Weather Conditions Santa Fe:

SANTA FE WEATHER  


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