@Isdaril Well, it was part of Mexico, along with the rest of the Southwest, up until 1848. Originally "Mexico" meant the area around what is now Mexico City, and when explorers went to see what lay further north, they called the area "Nuevo Mexico", in much the same way that English explorers called the area of the new world that they landed in "New England". Once we got the land, we just didn't bother to change the name, though we did whittle it down quite a lot.
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@Isdaril Well, it was part of Mexico, along with the rest of the Southwest, up until 1848.