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New Mexico is a southwestern state in the United States of America. Over its relatively long history it has also been occupied by Native American populations and has been part of the Spanish viceroyalty of New Spain, a province of Mexico and a U.S. territory. At the northwestern corner of New Mexico, the states of Colorado, Arizona, and Utah come together.
The landscape ranges from wide, rose-colored deserts to broken mesas to high, snow-capped peaks. Despite New Mexico's arid image, heavily forested mountain wildernesses cover a significant portion of the state. Part of the Rocky Mountains, the broken, north-south oriented Sangre de Cristo (Blood of Christ) range flanks both sides of the Rio Grande from the rugged, pastoral north through the center of the state. Cacti, yuccas, creosote bush, sagebrush, and desert grasses cover the broad, semiarid plains that cover the southern portion of the state.
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