Mexico's Plateaus and Coastal Regions

The core of mainland Mexico is the Mexican Plateau, or Altiplano Mexicano, a broad interior highland flanked by the Sierra Madre Oriental to the east and the Sierra Madre Occidental to the west. The plateau is generally divided into a drier, lower northern section, the Mesa del Norte, averaging around 1,100 meters in elevation, and a more densely populated southern section, the Mesa Central, which rises above 2,000 meters and contains the Valley of Mexico, the roughly 2,240-meter-high basin in which Mexico City sits.