Mexicali
capital of the State of Baja California, Mexico
Mexicali (English: ; Spanish: [mexiˈkali] ; Yue Chinese: 墨西加利) is the capital city of the Mexican state of Baja California. The city, which abuts the Mexico–United States border and the U.S. city of Calexico, California, is the seat of the Mexicali Municipality. It has a population of 689,775, according to the 2010 census, while the Calexico–Mexicali metropolitan area is home to a combined population of 1,000,000. Mexicali is a regional economic and cultural hub for the border region of The Californias.
Mexicali was founded at the turn of the 20th century, when the region's agricultural economy experienced a boom. The city rapidly expanded throughout the 20th century, owing to the proliferation of maquiladoras in the city, making the economy more interconnected with businesses from across the border. Today, Mexicali is a major manufacturing center and an emerging tourist destination.
History
The Spanish arrived in the area after crossing the Sonoran Desert's "Camino del Diablo" or Devil's Road. This led to the evangelization of the area by Catholic missionaries and also to the reduction of native populations in the region. Nowadays, indigenous Cocopah people still inhabit a small government-protected corner of the Colorado River delta near the junction of the Hardy and the Colorado.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Mexicali” as capital of the State of Baja California, Mexico. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as capital of the State of Baja California, Mexico. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q199440. VIAF identifies the subject as 155489705. The Library of Congress control number is n81139996. Authority coordinates are 32.636, -115.476. 2 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2010.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
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This entry incorporates text from “Mexicali” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.