People came to the area that's now New Mexico more than 12,000 years ago. Experts think they migrated from is now Russia across a land bridge(call) the Bering Strait during the last Ice Age. Thousands of years (late), native American tribes including the Apache, Zuni, Navajo and Pueblos lived on the land.
In 1540, a Spanish(explore), Francisco Vazquez de Coronado, came to the area in search of cities made of gold were rumored (谣传) to exist in the America. He didn't discover treasure, but over the next century the Spanish colonized the land. Then in 1821, Mexico declared its independenceSpain, and the area became part of Mexico. But after the United States won the Mexican- American War in 1848, New Mexico became an American territory. In 1912, it(declare) the 47th state.
When the Spanish set out to explore the region, they hoped to find land as(value)as what they had found earlier in Mexico. So they(name) the area Nueva Mexico. ("Nueva" means "new" in Spanish.) As for the word" Mexico", some experts think it's a version of a name that the Aztecs (a cultural group from Mexico) had for one of their gods.
The state has beautiful scenery from (mountain) to forests and deserts. This earns it the nickname the Land of Enchantment.
