"Estados Unidos Mexicanos" is the official name for the United Mexican States. They lie between the 87th and 117th degrees west longitude and between the 14th and 32nd degrees north latitude. Mexico borders the United States to the north and Belize and Guatemala to the southeast.

Mexico covers an area 5,5 times the size of Germany. This makes Mexico the thirteenth largest country in the world and the third largest country in Latin America (after Brazil and Argentina).

The greatest distance is measured from the extreme north-west to the extreme south-east of the country at around 3.170 km, which roughly corresponds to the distance from Stockholm to Tunis. At its narrowest point, the Tehuantepec Isthmus, Mexico is only 225 km wide. The border line with the USA in the north, at 2.597 km, is also much longer than the border in the southeast with Guatemala and Belize at 1.221 km.

Mexico has over 10.038 km of coastline. The beaches on the Pacific are 7.427 km long, the coastline on the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean is 2.611 km. There are amazing depths off the coasts of between 3.000 and 4.000m. In contrast, the Gulf is a relatively shallow body of water with depths averaging just 200m, at the same distance from the mainland.

Geographically, the northern part of Mexico up to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, i.e. most of it, belongs to North America. Only Yucatan and Chiapas belong to Central America. Mexico is usually counted among the Central American countries.