You likely know that Mexico has 32 federal entities — 31 states and the national capital, Mexico City, which has state-like status.
But do you know how many municipalities Mexico has?
At the end of 2024, the number was 2,478, including Mexico City’s 16 alcaldías (mayoral districts or boroughs), according to national statistics agency INEGI.
So which state has the most municipalities and which has the least? Read on to become a Mexico municipality master!
In this “Mexico in Numbers” article we also take a look at the size of Mexico’s states by area and compare some of them to different countries around the world. Did you know that Chihuahua is slightly bigger than the entire United Kingdom?
Oaxaca has 570 municipalities, Baja Sur has just 5
As you can see in the map below, the southern state of Oaxaca easily has the most municipalities among Mexico’s 32 federal entities. Why so many? In a nutshell, the provision of Indigenous autonomy at a hyper-local level — more than 400 of the 570 municipalities are self-governing Indigenous communities where leaders govern in accordance with a traditional system known as usos y costumbres.
Among the other quirks of the distribution of municipalities in Mexico is that the country’s largest state by area, Chihuahua, only has seven more municipalities than the nation’s smallest state, Tlaxcala. Needless to say, municipalities in Chihuahua are generally much larger than those in Tlaxcala. In fact, Chihuahua’s largest municipality, Ahumada, is more than four times larger than the entire state of Tlaxcala.
The number of municipalities in Mexico is subject to change. Among those that have been created this century are San Quintín in Baja California and Puerto Morelos in Quintana Roo. México state is currently analyzing a proposal to create four additional municipalities.
Chihuahua is more than 60 times larger than Tlaxcala
As you can see in the graphic below, Chihuahua is Mexico’s largest state by area, covering 247,455 square kilometers. Chihuahua is thus slightly bigger than the West African nation of Guinea (245,857 km²). The state’s area also exceeds the combined area of the four countries that make up the United Kingdom (244,376 km²).
Chihuahua is around 61 times larger than Tlaxcala — Mexico’s smallest state — and some 165 times bigger than Mexico City. The northern state covers around 12.5% of Mexico’s total territory of around 1.97 million square kilometers.
Here is a list of five other Mexican states and the countries that most closely match them in size.
- Sonora, Mexico’s second largest state, is slightly smaller than Cambodia (181,035 km²) and slightly bigger than Uruguay (176,215 km²).
- Oaxaca, Mexico’s fifth largest state, is slightly bigger than Hungary (93,025 km²).
- Nuevo León, Mexico’s 15th largest state, is slightly smaller than Latvia (64,594 km²).
- Hidalgo, Mexico’s 26th largest state, is slightly larger than Slovenia (20,273 km²) and slightly smaller than El Salvador (21,041 km²).
- Mexico City, Mexico’s smallest federal entity, is almost three-quarters the size of the Indian Ocean island nation of Mauritius (2,096 km²).
Click here to see a social media post with more comparisons between Mexican states and countries that closely match them in size.
Mexico News Daily
