Due to the influence of Spanish liberal thought, the fragmentation that had been gradually consolidated by the Bourbon Reforms in New Spain, the newly won Independence of Mexico, the size of the territory—almost 4,600,000 km² (1,776,069 sq mi)—and lack of easy communication across distances, there resulted a federal system with regional characteristics. The central states—Mexico, Puebla, Querétaro, Guanajuato, Veracruz and Michoacán—which were the most populated, worked as an administrative decentralization. The states of the periphery—Zacatecas, Coahuila y Texas, Durango, Chihuahua, Jalisco, San Luis Potosí and Nuevo León—acquired a moderate confederalism. The states furthest from the center—Yucatán, Sonora y Sinaloa, Tamaulipas and Las Californias—acquired a radical confederalism.