New Mexico Facts and Trivia

1. At 7,000 feet above sea level, Santa Fe is the highest capital city in the country.
    
2. Every October, the city of Las Cruces creates the world's largest enchilada at the Whole Enchilada Fiesta.
    
3. The White Sands Testing Range near the city of Alamogordo is where the first Atomic Bomb was first detonated in July 1945.
    
4. The desert in White Sands National Monument is actually made of white gypsum crystals, not sand.  
    
5. The city of Hatch is known as the "Green Chile Capital of the World."
     
6. New Mexico is one of the four corner states—it borders at the same location with Utah, Colorado and Arizona.
    
7. The state flower is the Yucca, whose leaves can be used to make baskets, rope and sandals.
    
8. Nearly a fourth of New Mexico is forested, thanks in large part to the 3.3 million-acre Gila National Forest.
    
9. The black bear is New Mexico’s official state animal.
    
10. The Navajo reservation covers 14 million acres throughout the state.
     
11. The New Mexico Indian Reservations mostly functions as its own state, where tribal law often supersedes state law.
     
12. New Mexico is actually a bilingual state. One out of three families in the state speaks Spanish at home.
     
13. It wasn’t until the 20th century that public education was widely available in New Mexico. There was not one public high school or college in the area until as late as 1888.
    
14. With only about 12 people per square mile, New Mexico has more cattle and sheep than people.

 

15. The Carlsbad Caverns are home to tens of thousands of bats. The largest chamber of the caverns is about 22 stories high and more than 10 football fields long.