text: |Native Name:||Santa Fe de Nuevo México|
  |Common Name:||Santa Fé de Nuevo México|
  |Flag:||Cross of Burgundy|
  |Symbol:||Flag of Mexico|
  |Status Text:||Province of the Viceroyalty of New Spain (1598–1821),|
  Territory of the First Mexican Empire (1821–23),
  Territory of the First Mexican Republic (1823–1848)
  |Title Leader:||Spanish governors|
  |Leader1:||Juan de Oñate|
  |Year Leader1:||1598–1610 (first)|
  |Year Leader2:||1818–1822 (last)|
  |Title Deputy:||Mexican governors|
  |Deputy1:||Francisco Xavier Chávez|
  |Year Deputy1:||July – Nov. 1822 (first)|
  |Deputy2:||Juan Bautista Vigil y Alarid|
  |Year Deputy2:||August – Sept. 1846 (last)|
  |Event Start:||Spanish missions in New Mexico|
  |Date Event2:||March 2, 1836|
  |Date Event3:||from April 25, 1846|
  |Event4:||Surrender to U.S. occupation|
  |Date Event4:||September 1846|
  |Event End:||Mexican Cession|
  |Date End:||February 2,|
  |Event Post:||New Mexico statehood|
  |Date Post:||January 6, 1912|
  |S1:||U.S. provisional government of New Mexico|
  |Footnotes:||While the Mexican territory theoretically existed until the Mexican Cession under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on February 2, 1848, the New Mexico Territory had been annexed under U.S. military occupation in September 1846, after the surrender by Mexican interim governor Juan Bautista Vigil y Alarid to General Stephen W. Kearny.|
  Santa Fe de Nuevo México (English: Santa Fe [Holy Faith] of New Mexico; shortened as Nuevo México or Nuevo Méjico, and translated as New Mexico in English) was a province of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and later a territory of independent Mexico. This naming was retained when the United States gained control of the New Mexico Territory, as well as the subsequent U.S. State of New Mexico.
  Spanish; Castilian: Nuevo México is often incorrectly believed to have taken its name from the nation of Mexico. However, it was named by Spanish explorers who believed the area contained wealthy Amerindian cultures similar to those of the Aztec Empire (centered in the Valley of Mexico), and called the land the "Santa Fe de Nuevo México".  
  Nuevo México was centered on the upper valley of the Rio Grande (Río Bravo del Norte): from the crossing point of Oñate on the river south of Ciudad Juárez, it extended north, encompassing an area that included most of the present-day U.S. state of New Mexico. It had variably defined borders, and included sections of present-day U.S. states: western Texas, southern Colorado, southwestern Kansas, and the Oklahoma panhandle. Actual Spanish settlements were centered at Santa Fe, and extended north to Taos pueblo and south to Albuquerque. Except for the first decade of the province's existence, its capital was in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains at the ancient city of La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asís (modern day Santa Fe).
  See also: Spanish missions in New Mexico.
  Oñate served as the first governor of the Nuevo México Province from 1598 to 1610. He hoped to make it a separate viceroyalty from New Spain in an original agreement made in 1595, but the terms failed when the Viceroy changed hands in 1596. After a two-year delay and lengthy vetting by the new viceroy, Oñate was finally allowed to cross the Rio Grande River into modern day Texas and New Mexico.
  The part of the former province east of the Rio Grande was claimed by the Republic of Texas which won its independence in 1836. This claim was disputed by Mexico. In 1841, the Texans sent the Texan Santa Fe Expedition, ostensibly for trade but with hopes of occupying the claimed area, but the expedition was captured by Mexican troops.
  See main article: History of New Mexico.
  See also: Territorial evolution of New Mexico.
  The United States inherited the unenforced claim to the east bank with the Texas Annexation in 1845. The U.S. Army under Stephen Kearny occupied the territory in 1846 during the Mexican–American War, a provisional government was established, and Mexico recognized its loss to the United States in 1848 with the Mexican Cession in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
  Texas continued to claim the eastern part, but never succeeded in establishing control except in El Paso. However, in the Compromise of 1850 Texas accepted $10 million in exchange for its claim to areas within and north of the present boundaries of New Mexico and the Texas panhandle.
  In 1849, President Zachary Taylor proposed that New Mexico immediately become a state to sidestep political conflict over slavery in the territories, but it did not become a state until January 1912.
  . Names on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States. George R. Stewart. 1945. 2008. NYRB Classics. New York. 23–24. 978-1-59017-273-5. There was Francisco de Ibarra, a great seeker after gold mines. In 1563 he went far to the north ... when he returned south, Ibarra boasted that he had discovered a New Mexico. Doubtless, like others, he stretched the tale, and certainly the land of which he told was well south of the one now so called. Yet men remembered the name Nuevo México, though not at first as that of the region which Coronado had once conquered..