Mining industry and territory in Mexico: Three historic patterns of socio-spatial implantion

Abstract

Mexican history reveals three models of mining territorial organization. During colonial age, the "Reales de Minas" were the core of economic, territorial and cultural integration. In the nineteenth century, the implantation system carried out by foreing companies was based upon the control of company-towns and their relative autonomy from the socioeconomic environment. Small mining industries have been able to survive within isolated communities and in symbiosis with the peasant economy, although permanent settlements were never established.