Chapter I
                        National Sovereignty and Form of Government

Article 39. The national sovereignty resides essentially and originally in the people All public power originates in the people and is instituted for their benefit. The people at all times have the inalienable right to alter or modify their form of government.

Article 40. It is the will of the Mexican people to organize themselves into a federal' democratic, representative Republic composed of free and sovereign States in all that concerns their internal government' but united in a Federation established according to the principles of this fundamental law.

Article 41. The people exercise their sovereignty through the powers of the Union in those cases within its jurisdiction, and through those of the States, in all that relates to their internal affairs, under the terms established by the present Federal Constitution and the individual constitutions of the States' respectively, which latter shall in no event contravene the stipulations of the Federal Pact.

                                                          Chapter II
         Integral Parts of the Federation and of the National Territory

Article 42.The national territory comprises:
1. The integral parts of the Federation;
  
2. The islands' including the reefs and keys in adjacent seas;
  
3. The islands of Guadalupe and the Revillagigedos situated in the Pacific Ocean;
  
4. The continental shelf and the submarine shelf of the islands' keys, and reefs;
  
5. The waters of the territorial seas to the extent and under terms fixed by international law and domestic maritime law;
  
6. The space located above the national territory to the extent and according to rules established by international law on the subject.

Article 43. The integral parts of the Federation are the States of Aguascalientes, Baja California, Campeche, Coahuila, Colima, Chiapas, Chihuahua, Durango, Guanajuato, Guerrero, Hidalgo, Jalisco, México, Michoacán, Morelos, Nayarit, Nuevo León, Oaxaca, Puebla, Querétaro, San Luis Potosí, Sinaloa, Sonora, Tabasco, Tamaulipas, Tlaxcala, Veracruz, Yucatán, Zacatecas, the Federal District, and the Territories of Baja California Sur, and Quintana Roo.

Article 44. The Federal District shall embrace its present territory, and in the event of the removal of the federal branches to some other place, it shall be erected into the State of Valle de México, with such boundaries and area as the General Congress shall assign to it.

Article 45. The States and Territories of the Federation shall keep their present area and boundaries as of this day, provided no difficulties arise concerning them.

Article 46. The States having pending boundary questions shall arrange or settle them as provided in this Constitution.

Article 47. The State of Nayarit shall have the territorial area and boundaries which at present comprise the Territory of Tepic.

Article 48.The islands, keys, and reefs of the adjacent seas which belong to the national territory, the continental shelf, the submarine shelf of the islands, keys, and reefs, the inland marine waters, and the space above the national territory shall depend directly on the Government of the Federation, with the exception of those islands over which the States have up to the present exercised jurisdiction.