Mexico

The language is Spanish.

OXXO is a major Mexican convenience store chain, seen frequently in towns and cities.

Many major Mexican companies have names ending in "-MEX" or "-MX" — state oil giant Pemex, telecom giant Telmex, and cement giant Cemex, among others.

Octagonal utility poles are common. If a pole has "-MEX" written on it, you can be confident it's Mexico.

Stop signs say "ALTO." That narrows it down to Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, or Panama.

Mexican arrow signs seem to have unusually thick arrows.

There are round bollards painted white and black.

You can spot the logo of Corona beer, brewed by Mexico's Grupo Modelo.

Wind farms are concentrated in a fairly limited set of areas by state, and in Mexico they cluster in part of the east.

The very head of the Gulf of California is flat, with almost no trees or cacti.

The central part of the country holds the Mexican Plateau, a broad flat tableland. There are often mountains on both sides of the road, or in every direction.

Farming takes place on the flat coastal lowlands. On the Pacific side (southern Sonora to northern Nayarit), you can sometimes see jagged mountains far off to the east. There is also flat farmland along the northeastern Gulf coast, but mountains are probably not visible there.

From Veracruz through Tabasco, there are places that look like Colombia, and reddish soil.

The north of the Yucatán Peninsula feels a little drier than the south, with a lot of white sand.

Central Monterrey is ringed by the steep limestone peaks of the Sierra Madre Oriental.

A tree with countless thin branches sprouting from a straight trunk (boojum tree, locally "cirio"). Limited to the middle of the Baja California peninsula, roughly from around San Quintín to the Tres Vírgenes volcanic complex.

A tall, giant columnar cactus points to the northwest. If thick arms curve upward partway up the trunk, it's a saguaro, found almost exclusively in the western half of Sonora. If several thick columns branch off near the base, it's a cardón, native to the Baja California peninsula and Sonora.

A large palm whose feathery leaves, up to 7m long, curve upward like an umbrella (corozo, Attalea rostrata). Found on the Gulf side from southern Tamaulipas to Campeche, forming dense stands in humid savanna.

A tree whose thick trunk branches repeatedly near the top, each branch ending in a bundle of stiff leaves (palma china, Yucca filifera) — a Mexican endemic. It's common in the dry ground of the Mexican Plateau.

A cactus 2–7m tall (garambullo) whose bluish-green columns rise from ground level in a candelabra-like shape. Each column has 6–8 ribs with gray spines. Widely distributed across dry ground in the center and north of the country.

A palm whose fan-shaped leaves radiate outward, forming a rounded, ball-like crown (Mexican palmetto, Sabal mexicana). On the Gulf coast it runs from Tamaulipas to the Yucatán Peninsula; on the Pacific coast, it is common from Nayarit southward.

If agave is planted in rows or along field borders, work out where it's from by the leaf colour and shape. A field densely packed with narrow, spiny, blue-gray leaves along the furrows is grown for tequila, centred on Jalisco (the Tequila Valley tends to come paired with reddish volcanic soil). A large agave with wide, thick leaves that curve outward (maguey pulquero) is grown for pulque, common on the high, dry plateau of Hidalgo and Tlaxcala.

Avocado orchards, with dark-green evergreen trees planted at even spacing on slopes. Michoacán accounts for about 75% of national production.

Tall sugarcane fields are most common in Veracruz, which accounts for about 37% of national sugar production. Jalisco and San Luis Potosí follow, among others.

Coffee plantations, with short trees planted under shade trees, are most common on mountain slopes above 600m elevation. Chiapas is the largest producer, followed by Veracruz and Puebla.

Fields with prickly pear cactus (nopal) planted in rows like an orchard crop. The State of Mexico is the largest producer of the fruit (tuna), with the rest coming from Puebla, the San Luis Potosí–Zacatecas plateau and elsewhere.

There are coconut plantations along Guerrero's coast. They're fairly rare elsewhere, but not impossible.

There are oil palm plantations in Chiapas and along Highway 186.

Google Car sometimes appears in the national park near Popocatépetl. It's usually cloudy, and the mountain is barely visible.

Mexico City's taxis are pink and marked "CDMX."

Because American tourists fly into towns around Quintana Roo, English signage is likely to be common there. The surrounding trees are also distinctive.

Holbox, an island off the north coast of the Yucatán Peninsula, bans vehicles from entering and has no paved roads, so golf carts and buggy-like vehicles dominate; ordinary cars are rare.

Cozumel, a resort island off the east side of the Yucatán Peninsula, has many taxis marked with the place name. The coast has stretches of pure white sand.

Isla Mujeres, a resort island near Cancún, has a lot of buggies.

Janitzio, an island in Lake Pátzcuaro in Michoacán, can be identified by a black dot on part of the camera.