Aridoamerica in the context of Proto-Uto-Aztecan language

The Bajío (the Lowlands) is a cultural and geographical region within the central Mexican plateau which roughly spans from northwest of Mexico City to the main silver mines in the northern-central part of the country. This includes (from south to north) the states of Querétaro, Guanajuato, parts of Jalisco (Centro, Los Altos de Jalisco), Aguascalientes and parts of Zacatecas, San Luis Potosí and Michoacán.

Located at the border between Mesoamerica and Aridoamerica, El Bajío saw relatively few permanent settlements and big civilizations during Pre-Columbian history, being mostly inhabited by the Otomi and semi-nomadic tribes known to the Aztecs as the "Chichimeca" peoples (poorly attested conglomerate of Uto-Nahua groups, from whom the Toltec and the Aztecs were probably descended). The tribes that inhabited the Bajío proved to be some of the hardest to conquer for the Spanish—peace was ultimately achieved via truce and negotiation—but due to its strategic location in the Silver Route, it also drew prominent attention from Europe, and some of the flagship Mexican colonial cities were built there, such as Zacatecas and Guanajuato. Abundant mineral wealth and favorable farming conditions would soon turn the region into the wealthiest of New Spain. At the beginning of the 19th century, El Bajío was also the place of the ignition of the Mexican War of Independence, and saw most of its battles during the initial phase of the war, including the Cry of Dolores, the storming of the Alhóndiga de Granaditas and the Battle of Calderón Bridge.

The Isthmo-Colombian Area is defined as a cultural area encompassing those territories occupied predominantly by speakers of the Misumalpan and Chibchan languages at the time of European contact. It includes portions of the Central American isthmus like eastern Honduras, the Mosquitia region, Panama, and northern Colombia.

The Mogollon culture (/ˌmoʊɡəˈjoʊn/ moh-gə-YOHN) is a pre-historic archaeological culture of Native American peoples from Southern New Mexico and Arizona, Northern Sonora and Chihuahua, and Western Texas. The northern part of this region is Oasisamerica, while the southern span of the Mogollon culture is known as Aridoamerica.

The Mogollon culture is one of the most well known prehistoric Southwestern cultural divisions of the Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico. The culture flourished from the archaic period, c. 200 CE, to either 1450 or 1540 CE, when the Spanish arrived.

Oasisamerica is a cultural region of Indigenous peoples in North America. Their precontact cultures were predominantly agrarian, in contrast with neighboring tribes to the south in Aridoamerica. The region spans parts of Northwestern Mexico and Southwestern United States and can include most of Arizona and New Mexico; southern parts of Utah and Colorado; and northern parts of Sonora and Chihuahua. During some historical periods, it might have included parts of California and Texas as well.

The term was first proposed by German-Mexican anthropologist Paul Kirchhoff, who also coined Mesoamerica and Aridoamerica, and is used by some scholars, primarily Mexican anthropologists, for the broad cultural area defining pre-Columbian southwestern North America. It extends from modern-day Utah down to southern Chihuahua, and from the coast on the Gulf of California eastward to the Río Bravo river valley. Its name comes from its position in relationship with the similar regions of Mesoamerica and mostly nomadic Aridoamerica.

The Chichimeca War (1550–1600) was a military conflict between the Spanish Empire and the Chichimeca Confederation established in the territories today known as the Central Mexican Plateau, called by the Conquistadores La Gran Chichimeca. The epicenter of the hostilities was the region now called the Bajío. The Chichimeca War is recorded as the longest and most expensive military campaign confronting the Spanish Empire and indigenous people in Aridoamerica. The forty-year conflict was settled through several peace treaties with the Spaniards which led to the pacification and, ultimately, the integration of the native populations into the New Spain society.

The Chichimeca War (1550–1600) began eight years after the two-year Mixtón War. It can be considered a continuation of the rebellion as the fighting did not come to a halt in the intervening years. The war was fought in what are the present-day Mexican states of Zacatecas, Guanajuato, Aguascalientes, Jalisco, Queretaro, and San Luis Potosí.

Southwestern archaeology is a branch of archaeology concerned with the Southwestern United States and Northwestern Mexico. This region was first occupied by hunter-gatherers, and thousands of years later by advanced civilizations, such as the Ancestral Puebloans, the Hohokam, and the Mogollon.

This area, identified with the current states of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Nevada in the western United States, and the states of Sonora and Chihuahua in northern Mexico, has seen successive prehistoric cultural traditions for at least of 12,000 years. An often-quoted statement from Erik Reed (1964) defined the Greater Southwest culture area as extending north to south from Durango, Mexico, to Durango, Colorado, and east to west from Las Vegas, Nevada, to Las Vegas, New Mexico. Differently areas of this region are also known as the American Southwest, North Mexico, and Oasisamerica, while its southern neighboring cultural region is known as Aridoamerica or Chichimeca.