El Norte

A region that has been continuously inhabited by the same culture on both sides of a border drawn through the middle of it. Northern Mexico and the American southwest were settled from the sixteenth century by Spanish and Mexican colonists, missions and presidios, in country too arid for dense agriculture and too distant from Mexico City for close administration - which produced a frontier society that was self-reliant, entrepreneurial and habitually sceptical of the capital, on either side. The 1848 border was imposed by war and cut through it, leaving Hispano and Tejano communities that had been there for generations as minorities in a new country; New Mexico's Hispano population held the majority for decades afterwards, which is why statehood took until 1912. The border has been porous in practice for most of its existence, with families, labour, capital and language crossing continuously. Maquiladoras since the 1960s and NAFTA from 1994 integrated the two sides economically while immigration politics hardened the line. Spanish and English are both everyday languages across it. The region's cuisine and music are shared rather than parallel. The region covers northern Mexico and the American southwest from California to Texas. Around forty million people speak Spanish at home in the United States, concentrated here. Santa Fe, founded around 1610, is the oldest continuously occupied capital in the country. The border runs about three thousand kilometres. Norteno and Tejano music are shared traditions on both sides. Cattle ranching techniques and vocabulary passed from here into the American cowboy.

• Existed: 1598 CE – present
• Type: Entity