>>556142
It never expanded north

>>556155
It had states in the American West. It wasn't always south of the Rio Grande.

>>556162

It was the US which expanded South, Mexico was already in.
And Mexico was also in Central America for a while

>>556162
While California was(partially) kind of like you've said, the rest of that territory was claimed/colonised in Spanish times.


OP - Geography. Yucatan is already hard to police, let alone territories further down south.

>>556180
So they never wanted to expand further than that?

>>556142
They originally had all of Central America except for Panama, but they seceded just a few years after Mexico's independence.

>>556142
Up until surprisingly recent times, Mexico was very divided between the Central/North side and the Yucatan peninsula, my guess is that the federal government had enough trouble keeping Yucatan in the republic.

>>556253
Not only are Latin American countries usually characterized by joke, incompetent armies, but most have also historically been too internally unstable to attempt empire building.

Plus, population density in Latin America was/is pretty low, so there has never been any interest in acquiring extra land. Only reason to wage war over some territory is if it holds valuable mines or oil. Interest in acquiring extra cities or arable land is null.

>>556172
TBF, the Mexicans were concerned with, and slightly inadequate at, expanding north. California Norte was still a massive, barely touched frontier for them.

>>556667
Not always true, in Colombia good lands were scarce and tended to be taken up by large land owners, which has been one of the sources of armed conflict

>>556142
It's always been too busy either being invaded or torn apart from the inside

I only just learned about 5 minutes ago that baja california is mexican clay. no wonder the sinaloa cartel is thriving. I just thought that it was part of california with nothing special going on

>>556142
JUNGLES SUCK

>>556142
I need a bigger version of pic related that can actually be read