ESTADO DE NUEVO LEÓN Other Mexican States Capital Monterrey Other major cities Area 64,924 km² Ranked 13th Population (2000 census) 3,826,240 Ranked 9th Governor (2003-09) José Natividad González Parás (PRI/PVEM) Federal Deputies (11) PRI/PVEM = 10 PAN = 1 Federal Senators PAN = 2 PRI = 1 ISO 3166-2 Postal abbr. MX-NLE N.L.

Nuevo León (Spanish for "New León", after the former kingdom in Spain) is a state located in north-eastern Mexico. It borders the Mexican states of Tamaulipas to the north and east, Zacatecas and San Luis Potosí to the south, and Coahuila to the west. To the north, Nuevo León also shares a 15 km stretch of borderline with Texas, (USA).

It was originally called Nuevo Reyno de León (archaic Spanish for New Kingdom of León) when founded by Portuguese and Spanish settlers led by Luis Carvajal y de la Cueva at the end of the 16th century.

The capital city of Nuevo León is Monterrey.

Economy

Highly industralized, Nuevo León ranks above all Latin American cities at the Human Development Index developed by the UN.

One of its municipalities, San Pedro Garza García, has the highest income per capita in Latin America and Monterrey, the capital, is one of the largest cities in the nation and home of powerful conglomerates, such as Cemex (world's 4th largest cement company), Bimbo (bakery and pastry), Maseca (food and grains), Banorte (the only high-street bank in Mexico wholly owned by Mexicans), Alestra (telecommunications), Vitro (glass), Hylsa (steel), FEMSA (Coca-Cola in Latin America), and Cervecería Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma (brewers of Sol, Tecate, XX, Bohemia, Indio and Nochebuena).

Government

See main article Politics and government of Nuevo León.

Official name: Estado Libre y Soberano de Nuevo León (Free and Sovereign State of Nuevo León).

Type of government: Republican and representative according to 30th article of the local constitution.

Executive: In the 6 July 2003 gubernatorial election, Alianza Ciudadana – an electoral alliance between the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the Green Ecological Party of Mexico (PVEM) – regained control of the state from President Fox's party National Action Party (PAN). The new governor, José Natividad González Parás of the PRI, was sworn in on 4 October 2003 for a period of six years.

Cabinet: Chosen directly by the Governor except for the General Comptroller and the State General Attorney, which are elected by Congress from a list of names provided by the Governor.

Legislative: The State has a unicameral chamber. The LXX Congress of Nuevo León is composed of 42 deputies, 26 of them chosen by first-past-the-post electoral districts and 16 of them by proportional representation on a party-list basis. The parties represented are the PRI with twenty-four (20 fpp and 4 pr), the PAN with eleven (6 & 5) , the Partido del Trabajo (PT) with three (0 & 3), the PVEM with two (0 & 2), the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) with one (0 & 1), and Convergencia with one (0 & 1). The president of the permanent commission is César Santos Cantú of the PRI.

Judiciary: Judicial power rests in the Superior Court of Justice of the State of Nuevo León, led by Minister Genaro Muñoz Muñoz.

Political parties: Official recognition is given by the State Electoral Commission to those parties getting more than 1.5% of the votes in the last election (Art.40 of the State Electoral Law), which are the ones represented in Congress.

Municipalities

1. Abasolo (Abasolo)
2. Agualeguas (Agualeguas)
3. Allende (Ciudad de Allende)
4. Anahuac (Anahuac)
5. Apodaca (Ciudad Apodaca)
6. Aramberri (Aramberri)
7. Bustamante (Bustamante)
8. Cadereyta Jiménez (Cadereyta Jiménez)
9. Carmen (Carmen)
10. Cerralvo (Ciudad Cerralvo)
11. China (China)
12. Cienéga de Flores (Cienéga de Flores)
13. Doctor Arroyo (Doctor Arroyo)
14. Doctor Coss (Doctor Coss)
15. Doctor González (Doctor González)
16. Galeana (Galeana)
17. García (García)
18. General Bravo (General Bravo)
19. General Escobedo (General Escobedo)
20. General Terán (General Terán)
21. General Treviño (General Treviño)
22. General Zaragoza (General Zaragoza)
23. General Zuazua (General Zuazua)
24. Guadalupe (Guadalupe)
25. Hidalgo (Hidalgo)
26. Higueras (Higueras)
27. Hualahuises (Hualahuises)
28. Iturbide (Iturbide)
29. Juárez (Ciudad Benito Juárez)
30. Lampazos de Naranjo (Lampazos de Naranjo)
31. Linares (Linares)
32. Los Aldamas (Los Aldamas)
33. Los Herreras (Los Herreras)
34. Los Ramones (Los Ramones)
35. Marín (Marín)
36. Melchor Ocampo (Melchor Ocampo)
37. Mier y Noriega (Mier y Noriega)
38. Mina (Mina)
39. Montemorelos (Montemorelos)
40. Monterrey (Monterrey)
41. Paras (Paras)
42. Pesquería (Pesquería)
43. Rayones (Rayones)
44. Sabinas Hidalgo (Sabinas Hidalgo)
45. Salinas Victoria (Salinas Victoria)
46. San Nicolás de los Garza (San Nicolás de los Garza)
47. San Pedro Garza García (San Pedro Garza García)
48. Santa Catarina (Santa Catarina)
49. Santiago (Santiago)
50. Vallecillo (Vallecillo)
51. Villaldama (Villaldama)

See also

• History of Nuevo León
• Fiestas of Nuevo León

Sources

• Human Development Report for Mexico 2002 (http://www.undp.org.mx/desarrollohumano/index_ing.html)
• Historia de Nuevo León by Israel Cavazos (in Spanish) (http://lectura.ilce.edu.mx:3000/biblioteca/sites/estados/libros/nleon/htm/SEC_14.html)
• Encliclopedia de los Municipios de México (in Spanish) (http://www.e-local.gob.mx/enciclo/nuevoleon/)
• Comisión Estatal Electoral de Nuevo León (in Spanish) (http://www.cee-nl.org.mx)
• Ley Estatal Electoral de Nuevo León, 1996 (in Spanish) (http://www.cee-nl.org.mx/CEE_html/elproceso/leyelectoral.htm)

States of Mexico
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