PURPOSE OF THE WORK 
Land tenure is one of the main aspects to be taken into account, in order to examine the 
process of agricultural development in the Mexican Republic, since its government has 
for a long time channeled its efforts into solving it, and many countries in the world 
scene, which are concerned with agricultural development, have given it an important place 
on their research agendas. 
The main idea behind land distribution was to achieve greater productivity by cultivating 
unused land and properly motivating farmers with its ownership, thus the Department of 
Agrarian Affairs tries to locate all the areas. 
The task of locating all land property, under the above mentioned categories, is tremen- 
dous, since they have to be looked for in an area of two million square kilometers 
covered with natural obstacles such as mountain ranges, swamps, rivers, etc. 
The technicians in charge of solving this problem were aware of the obstacles they 
had to face to fulfill their task; nevertheless they considered indispensable to carry it 
out before December 1970, so that in this relatively short period they would have already 
starred putting all the areas located under production, since the accelerated growth of 
the population and the general index of development need a sustained increase of 
agricultural products which can only be obtained in a short term through the massive 
increase of areas under explotation. 
II. OUTLINE OF THE PROBLEM 
The locating of the areas which through legal provision should come under the control of 
the nation to satisfy agrarian needs in the whole Mexican Republic, is a wide and com- 
plicated task since it not only involves studying a very large area, but the country itself 
also has peculiar characteristics, which mean great obstacle for the carrying out of such 
a research work. 
It is convenient to give a brief description of this physical geography, in order to be 
acquainted with its natural features. 
The Mexican Republic is situated of the American Continent. The territory is far reaching, 
since it stretches from 14?32' 32?42'. at the north Hemisphere. 
The country is divided into thirty-two entities, most of them states, and varying in size, from 
1,500 to 245,000 square kilometers. 
On the enclosed map titled "'Political Division", the state-limits, the boundaries of the 
federal territories and their capitals, are shown. Figure 1. 
The climate is quite variable, from evergreen an rainly jungles to true deserts, passing 
through vast semi-desertic areas to the plateaux. Fig. 2. 
The orographic features are very important, since, from them, the hydrological conditions 
and communication networks are derived and have to be adapted to it. There are two 
main mountain ranges which run parallel to the coast and which meet approximately at 
the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. These mountain ranges have constituted natural obstacles for 
communications in the surrounding areas and they are the Sierra Madre Occidental and the 
Sierra Madre Oriental. You should consider as well a great number of mountain ranges 
and mountainous regions of less importance. (Fig. 3). 
On a map that we also enclose you with study of the position and names of the main fluvial 
currents of the Mexican Republic. Amongst the outstanding ones are the Rio Grande del 
Norte or Rio Bravo which is considerably long and serves as a border with the United 
States of North America and the Rio Grijalva-Usumacinta of shorter length but within the 
sixth largest volume of flow in the world. Figure 4. 
Within the national territory, having the characteristics which we have briefly pointed our, 
dwells the population of the Mexican Republic, with a very rapid growthrate of 3.4% pei 
year, this being one of the highest in the world. The last calculation gives us a total 
of 45 million inhabitants. This population is not evenly distributed throughout the whole 
territory, but, on the contrary notable regional differences with different centers of concen- 
tration exist, amongst which the plateau is outstanding. Fig. 5. 
All the circumstances which were noted in condensed form make the task more difficult 
since the territorial extension makes its study more difficult, mountains limit transportation, 
and the climate makes visits hazardous. 
Going further into the analysis of the factors which have influenced carrying out of the 
research, we must remember that it was considered necessary to study an area of two 
million square kilometers during aperiod o! four years, in a country essentially mountainous 
and of a tropical climate, with extremely high temperatures and continual rainfall. Not 
lacking, on the other hand, are extreme zones, very cold in winter and very hot in summer. 
  
  
  
   
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