Portal:Border/Selected article

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The border between Mexico and the United States spans four U.S. states, six Mexican states, and has over twenty commercial crossings.

The international border between the United States and Mexico runs from San Diego, California, and Tijuana, Baja California, in the west to Matamoros, Tamaulipas, and Brownsville, Texas, in the east. It traverses a variety of terrains, ranging from major urban areas to inhospitable deserts. From the Gulf of Mexico it follows the course of the Rio Grande (Río Bravo del Norte) to the border crossing at El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua; westward from that binational conurbation it crosses vast tracts of the Sonoran and Chihuahuan Deserts, the Colorado River Delta, and the northernmost tip of the Baja California Peninsula before reaching the Pacific Ocean. The border's total length is 1,951 miles (3,141 km), according to figures given by the International Boundary and Water Commission. It is the most frequently crossed international border in the world, with some 350 million people crossing legally every year.