Metropolitan areas of Mexico
The metropolitan areas of Mexico have been traditionally defined as the group of municipalities that heavily interact with each other, usually around a core city.
Methodology
In 2004, a joint effort between CONAPO, INEGI and the Ministry of Social Development agreed to define metropolitan areas to be any of the following:- a group of two or more municipalities in which a city with a population of at least 50,000 is located in an urban area that extends over the limit of the municipality that originally contained the core city incorporating, physically or under its area of direct influence other adjacent predominantly urban municipalities, all of which either have a high degree of social and economic integration or are relevant for urban politics and administration
- a single municipality in which a city of a population of at least one thousand is located and fully contained
- a city with a population of at least 250,000 that forms a conurbation with other cities in the United States.
A few metropolitan areas extend beyond the limits of one state: Greater Mexico City, Puebla-Tlaxcala, Comarca Lagunera, and Tampico.
List of metropolitan areas in Mexico by population
There are 60 metropolitan areas, as defined by the following government bodies:- The National Institute of Statistics and Geography.
- The Secretariat of Social Development.
- The National Population Council.
| Rank | Metropolitan area | Federative Entity | 2015 Pop. | 2010 Pop. | Change |
| 1 | Greater Mexico City | Mexico City, Mexico, Hidalgo | - | - | |
| 2 | Greater Guadalajara | Jalisco | - | - | |
| 3 | Greater Monterrey | Nuevo León | - | - | |
| 4 | Greater Puebla | Puebla, Tlaxcala | - | - | |
| 5 | Greater Toluca | Mexico | - | - | |
| 6 | Greater Tijuana | Baja California | - | - | |
| 7 | Greater León | Guanajuato | - | - | |
| 8 | Greater Juárez | Chihuahua | - | - | |
| 9 | Greater Torreón | Coahuila, Durango | - | - | |
| 10 | Greater Querétaro | Querétaro, Guanajuato | - | - | |
| 11 | Greater San Luis Potosí | San Luis Potosí | - | - | |
| 12 | Greater Mérida | Yucatán | - | - | |
| 13 | Greater Aguascalientes | Aguascalientes | - | - | |
| 14 | Greater Mexicali | Baja California | - | - | |
| 15 | Greater Cuernavaca | Morelos | - | - | |
| 16 | Greater Saltillo | Coahuila | - | - | |
| 17 | Greater Chihuahua | Chihuahua | - | - | |
| 18 | Greater Tampico | Tamaulipas, Veracruz | - | - | |
| 19 | Greater Morelia | Michoacán | - | - | |
| 20 | Culiacán-Greater Culiacán | Sinaloa | - | - | |
| 21 | Greater Veracruz | Veracruz | - | - | |
| 22 | Greater Acapulco | Guerrero | - | - | |
| 23 | Greater Hermosillo | Sonora | - | - | |
| 24 | Greater Villahermosa | Tabasco | - | - | |
| 25 | Reynosa-Greater Río Bravo | Tamaulipas | - | - | |
| 26 | Greater Cancún | Quintana Roo | - | - | |
| 27 | Greater Tuxtla | Chiapas | - | - | |
| 28 | Greater Xalapa | Veracruz | - | - | |
| 29 | Greater Oaxaca | Oaxaca | - | - | |
| 30 | Greater Celaya | Guanajuato | - | - | |
| 31 | Greater Pachuca | Hidalgo | - | - | |
| 32 | Tlaxcala-Apizaco | Tlaxcala | - | - | |
| 33 | Greater Poza Rica | Veracruz | - | - | |
| 34 | Greater Matamoros | Tamaulipas | - | - | |
| 35 | Mazatlán-Greater Mazatlán | Sinaloa | - | - | |
| 36 | Greater Cuautla | Morelos | - | - | |
| 37 | Greater Tepic | Nayarit | - | - | |
| 38 | Greater Orizaba | Veracruz | - | - | |
| 39 | Greater Puerto Vallarta | Jalisco, Nayarit | - | - | |
| 40 | Greater Nuevo Laredo | Tamaulipas | - | - | |
| 41 | Greater Minatitlán | Veracruz | - | - | |
| 42 | Greater Coatzacoalcos | Veracruz | - | - | |
| 43 | Colima-Villa de Álvarez | Colima | - | - | |
| 44 | Greater Córdoba | Veracruz | - | - | |
| 45 | Zacatecas-Guadalupe | Zacatecas | - | - | |
| 46 | Greater Tehuacán | Puebla | - | - | |
| 47 | Monclova-Frontera | Coahuila | - | - | |
| 48 | Zamora-Jacona | Michoacán | - | - | |
| 49 | Greater Tulancingo | Hidalgo | - | - | |
| 50 | La Piedad-Pénjamo | Michoacán, Guanajuato | - | - | |
| 51 | Greater Tula | Hidalgo | - | - | |
| 52 | Greater Guaymas | Sonora | - | - | |
| 53 | Greater San Francisco del Rincón | Guanajuato | - | - | |
| 54 | Greater Piedras Negras | Coahuila | - | - | |
| 55 | Greater Tehuantepec | Oaxaca | - | - | |
| 56 | Greater Tianguistenco | Mexico | - | - | |
| 57 | Greater Tecomán | Colima | - | - | |
| 58 | Greater Ocotlán | Jalisco | - | - | |
| 59 | Greater Rioverde | San Luis Potosí | - | - | |
| 60 | Greater Teziutlán | Puebla | - | - | |
| 61 | Greater Acayucan | Veracruz | - | - | |
| 62 | Moroleón-Uriangato | Guanajuato | - | - |
Transnational conurbations
The United States shares a 2,000 mi border with Mexico. It is the most frequently crossed international border in the world, with about 250 million legal crossings every year. The distribution of the population in Mexico, especially, in urban areas, has been changed significantly by the economic interaction between settlements in its north and the United States. The increasing population concentration in the north of Mexico is strongly associated with the development of the maquila industries there and the eventual economic effects of North American Free Trade Agreement.Metropolitan areas at the border with the US form transnational conurbations with deep economic and demographic interaction. For example, the San Diego – Tijuana metropolitan area consists of San Diego County in the US and the municipalities of Tijuana, Playas de Rosarito, and Tecate in Mexico. The total population of the region has been estimated to be just over 5 million in 2009, making it by far the largest binational metropolitan area shared between the US and Mexico. The National Population Council recognizes the existence of such metropolitan areas and defines them as the municipalities with a city of at least 200,000 inhabitants and sharing processes of conurbation with cities of the US:
| Rank | Metropolitan Area | Mexican State | American State | Population |
| 1 | Tijuana - San Diego | Baja California | California | 5,009,170 |
| 2 | El Paso - Juarez | Chihuahua | Texas | 2,345,182 |
| 3 | Reynosa - McAllen | Tamaulipas | Texas | 1,500,000 |
| 4 | Matamoros - Brownsville | Tamaulipas | Texas | 1,136,995 |
| 5 | Mexicali - Calexico | Baja California | California | 956,223 |
| 6 | Nuevo Laredo - Laredo | Tamaulipas | Texas | 747,494 |
| 7 | Nogales - Nogales | Sonora | Arizona | 234,809 |
| 8 | Piedras Negras - Eagle Pass | Coahuila | Texas | 230,205 |
| 9 | San Luis Río Colorado - San Luis | Sonora | Arizona | 188,152 |
| 10 | Ciudad Acuña - Del Río | Coahuila | Texas | 183,750 |
Mexico City megalopolis
A megalopolis is defined as a long chain of continuous metropolitan areas, or territories that are relatively integrated amongst each other, a clear example being the Northeast Megalopolis in the United States. In 1996, the Programa General de Desarollo Urbano del Distrito Federal first proposed this concept to refer to the Mexico City megalopolis, or "megalopolis of central Mexico", which was later expanded by PROAIRE, a metropolitan commission on the environment.A megalopolis is known in Spanish as a corona regional de ciudades. The megalopolis of central Mexico was defined to be integrated by the metropolitan areas of Mexico City, Puebla, Cuernavaca, Toluca and Pachuca, which may also conform complex subregional rings themselves.
The megalopolis has 173 municipalities as well as the 16 boroughs of the Federal District, with a total population of almost 27 million people.