Mexican Plateau in the context of "Otomi"

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.

Thermal lows, or heat lows, are non-frontal low-pressure areas that occur over the continents in the subtropics during the warm season, as the result of intense heating when compared to their surrounding environments. Thermal lows occur near the Sonoran Desert, on the Mexican Plateau, in California's Great Central Valley, in the Sahara, in the Kalahari, over north-west Argentina, in South America, over the Kimberley region of north-west Australia, over the Iberian Peninsula, and over the Tibetan Plateau.

On land, intense, rapid solar heating of the Earth's surface causes the heating of the lowest layers of the atmosphere, via re-radiated energy in the infrared spectrum. The hotter air is less dense than surrounding cooler air and rises, leading to the formation of a low-pressure area. Elevated areas can enhance the strength of the thermal low because they warm more quickly than the atmosphere which surrounds them at the same altitude. Over water, instability lows form during the winter when the air overlying the land is colder than the warmer water body.

The Chihuahuan Desert (Spanish: Desierto de Chihuahua, Desierto Chihuahuense) is a desert ecoregion designation covering parts of northern Mexico and the southwestern United States. It occupies much of far West Texas, the middle to lower Rio Grande Valley and the lower Pecos Valley in New Mexico, and a portion of southeastern Arizona, as well as the central and northern portions of the Mexican Plateau. It is bordered on the west by the Sonoran Desert, the Colorado Plateau, and the extensive Sierra Madre Occidental range, along with northwestern lowlands of the Sierra Madre Oriental range. Its largest, continual expanse is located in Mexico, covering a large portion of the state of Chihuahua, along with portions of Coahuila, north-eastern Durango, the extreme northern part of Zacatecas, and small western portions of Nuevo León. With an area of about 501,896 km (193,783 sq mi), it is the largest hot desert in North America. The desert is fairly young, existing for only 8,000 years.

Sky islands are isolated mountains surrounded by radically different lowland environments. The term originally referred to those found on the Mexican Plateau and has extended to similarly isolated high-elevation forests. The isolation has significant implications for these natural habitats. Endemism, altitudinal migration, and relict populations are some of the natural phenomena to be found on sky islands.

The complex dynamics of species richness on sky islands draws attention from the discipline of biogeography, and likewise the biodiversity is of concern to conservation biology. One of the key elements of a sky island is separation by physical distance from the other mountain ranges, resulting in a habitat island, such as a forest surrounded by desert.

Otomi (/ˌoʊtəˈmiː/ OH-tə-MEE; Spanish: Otomí [otoˈmi]) is an Oto-Pamean language spoken by approximately 240,000 indigenous Otomi people in the central altiplano region of Mexico. Otomi consists of several closely related languages, many of which are not mutually intelligible. The word Hñähñu [hɲɑ̃hɲṹ] has been proposed as an endonym, but since it represents the usage of a single dialect, it has not gained wide currency. Linguists have classified the modern dialects into three dialect areas: the Northwestern dialects are spoken in Querétaro, Hidalgo and Guanajuato; the Southwestern dialects are spoken in the State of Mexico; and the Eastern dialects are spoken in the highlands of Veracruz, Puebla, and eastern Hidalgo and villages in Tlaxcala and Mexico states.

Like all other Oto-Manguean languages, Otomi is a tonal language, and most varieties distinguish three tones. Nouns are marked only for possessor; the plural number is marked with a definite article and a verbal suffix, and some dialects keep dual number marking. There is no case marking. Verb morphology is either fusional or agglutinating depending on the analysis. In verb inflection, infixation, consonant mutation, and apocope are prominent processes. The number of irregular verbs is large. A class of morphemes cross-references the grammatical subject in a sentence. These morphemes can be analysed as either proclitics or prefixes and mark tense, aspect and mood. Verbs are inflected for either direct object or dative object (but not for both simultaneously) by suffixes. Grammar also distinguishes between inclusive 'we' and exclusive 'we'.

The Mexican tetra (Astyanax mexicanus), also known as the blind cave fish, blind cave characin or the blind cave tetra, is a species of freshwater ray-finned fish belonging to the family Acestrorhamphidae, the American characins. This fish is found in the lower Rio Grande, and the Nueces and Pecos Rivers in Texas, into the Central Plateau and eastern states of Mexico.

Maturing at a total length of about 12 cm (4.7 in), the Mexican tetra is of typical characin form, albeit with silvery, unremarkable scalation, likely an evolutionary adaptation to its natural environment. By comparison, the species' blind "cave" form has scales which evolved a depigmented, pinkish-white color, somewhat resembling an albino, as it inhabits pitch-black caverns and subterranean streams and has no need for a colorful appearance (i.e. for attracting mates, camouflage, UV protection).

Aguascalientes (Spanish pronunciation: [ˌaɣwaskaˈljentes] , lit. "hot waters" in Spanish) is the capital of the Mexican state of Aguascalientes and its most populous city, as well as the head of the Aguascalientes Municipality, with a population of 948,990 inhabitants in 2012 and 1,225,432 in the metro area. The metropolitan area also includes the municipalities of Jesús María and San Francisco de los Romo. It is located in North-Central Mexico, which roughly corresponds to the Bajío region within the central Mexican plateau. The city stands on a valley of steppe climate at 1880 meters above sea level, at 21°51′N 102°18′W / 21.850°N 102.300°W / 21.850; -102.300.

Originally the territory of the nomadic Chichimeca peoples, the city was founded on October 22, 1575, by Spanish families relocating from Lagos de Moreno under the name of Villa de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción de las Aguas Calientes (Village of Our Lady of the Assumption of the Hot Waters), in reference to the chosen patron saint and the many thermal springs found close to the village, which still remain to this day. It would serve as an outpost in the Silver Route, while politically, it was part of the kingdom of Nueva Galicia. In 1835, President Antonio López de Santa Anna made Aguascalientes the capital of a new territory in retaliation to the state of Zacatecas, eventually becoming capital of a new state in 1857. During the Porfiriato era, Aguascalientes was chosen to host the main workshops of the Mexican Central Railway company; bringing an industrial and cultural explosion. The city hosted the Revolutionary Convention of 1914, an important meeting of war generals during the Mexican Revolution.