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- Blank New Mexico map
NM · 33 counties · 121,590 sq mi · print portrait · West · Mountain
Blank New Mexico map
A blank outline of New Mexico: an almost-square block with a small tab hanging off the bottom left. Straight lines on every side. Nothing inside.
What the outline shows
The map shows the state boundary and nothing else. Every border is a surveyed straight line. The north edge with Colorado is the 37th parallel. The east edge is a meridian shared with Oklahoma (the short top section) and Texas. The south edge with Texas runs along about 32°N to the Rio Grande, then the river itself for a short distance down to the Mexican border; the border with Mexico is a straight line west with one step at the Bootheel, the tab of land in the southwest corner. The west edge with Arizona is a meridian. No counties, no Rio Grande, no cities. Press Capital to mark Santa Fe in the north-central part of the state, which many students expect to be Albuquerque, 60 miles to the southwest.
Portrait or landscape
New Mexico is about 390 miles from north to south, including the Bootheel, and about 340 miles east to west. That is a little taller than wide, so portrait gives the larger map, and it leaves the Bootheel at the bottom left with room around it. Landscape works nearly as well because the shape is close to square; choose it when you want a wide table beside the map. At either scale the Rio Grande, which runs the full height of the state, will be the longest line students draw.
Five classroom exercises
- Draw the Rio Grande entering from Colorado in the north, running south past Albuquerque and Las Cruces, and forming the short river border with Texas near El Paso.
- Draw the Pecos River rising near Santa Fe and flowing southeast into Texas, and mark that both it and the Rio Grande eventually meet in Texas.
- Mark the Four Corners point at the northwest corner and name the three other states that meet there.
- Shade the Bootheel and explain that it was part of the 1853 Gadsden Purchase, then mark the step in the Mexican border where it begins.
- Place Albuquerque, Las Cruces, Rio Rancho, Santa Fe and Roswell, and draw the Sangre de Cristo Mountains running north from Santa Fe into Colorado.
How to recognise the New Mexico outline
- A near-square block with all straight edges.
- A small rectangular tab, the Bootheel, at the bottom left corner.
- A short jog in the bottom edge to the right of the Bootheel where the Rio Grande briefly forms the border.
- Its northwest corner is the Four Corners point; the straight edges continue into Colorado and Arizona.
Answer key and related maps
- New Mexico map — the labeled version with capital, cities and borders; use it as the answer key.
- Printable New Mexico map — the same outline with cities, county lines and the capital printed on.
- New Mexico county map — all 33 counties with their seats.
- Santa Fe — the capital, the oldest in the country and the highest above sea level.
- Neighbours: Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona blank maps.
- Rio Grande, Four Corners and Southwest region.
- All blank state maps and the printable US maps index.