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Nuevo León (Spanish for "New León", after the province 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.
Highly industralized, Nuevo León ranks above all Latin American countries at the Human Development Index developed by the UN, with a standard of living above many European nations including the Czech Republic and Poland.
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 (aluminium), FEMSA (Coca-Cola in Latin America), and Cervecería Cuauhtémoc-Moctezuma (brewers of Sol, Tecate, XX, Bohemia, Indio and Nochebuena).
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.
Municipalities: A total of 51: Abasolo, Agualeguas, Los Aldama, Allende, Anáhuac, Apodaca, Aramberri, Bustamante, Cadereyta Jiménez, El Carmen, Cerralvo, China, Ciénega de Flores, Doctor Arroyo, Doctor Coss, Doctor González, Escobedo, Galeana, García, General Bravo, General Terán, General Treviño, Guadalupe, Los Herreras, Hidalgo, Higueras, Hualahuises, Iturbide, Juárez, Lampazos de Naranjo, Linares, Marín, Melchor Ocampo, Mier y Noriega, Mina, Montemorelos, Monterrey (capital), Parás, Pesquería, Los Ramones, Rayones, Sabinas Hidalgo, Salinas Victoria, San Nicolás de los Garza, San Pedro Garza García, Santa Catarina, Santiago, Vallecillo, Villaldama, Zaragoza and General Zuazua.
Economy
Government
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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, lead 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.