Why Is New Mexico Named After Mexico?

New Mexico was not named after the modern country of Mexico, but after Mexico City, the capital of the Spanish colony of New Spain. The name "Mexico" derives from the Nahuatl word Mēxihco, meaning "place of the Mexica people" (the Aztec tribe that founded Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City, in the 14th century). Spanish explorers and settlers applied the name "Nuevo México" to the lands north of New Spain in the 16th century, long before the modern nation of Mexico gained independence in 1821.