Gossypium hirsutum, also known as upland cotton or Mexican cotton, is the most widely planted species of cotton in the world. Globally, about 90% of all cotton production is of cultivars derived from this species. In the United States, the world's largest exporter of cotton, it constitutes approximately 95% of all cotton production. It is native from Mexico to Ecuador and northeast Brazil, the Leeward Antilles in the Caribbean and the Pacific (Fiji, Marianas, Polynesia and Revillagigedo Islands).
It is believed that gossypium hirsutum was created when wild Mexican cotton breeds mixed with gossypium herbaceum around 5-10 million years ago, producing a hybrid species with 26 pairs of chromosomes via polyploidy.
Archeological evidence from the Tehuacan Valley in Mexico shows the cultivation of this species as long ago as 3,500 BC, although there is as yet no evidence as to exactly where it may have been first domesticated.
