Demographics of Mexico

With a population of about 129 million in 2022, Mexico is the 10th most populated country in the world. It is the largest Spanish-speaking country in the world and the third-most populous country in the Americas after the United States and Brazil, the most populous city in the country is the capital, Mexico City, with a population of 9.2 million and its metropolitan area is also the most populated with 21.8 million as of 2020. Approximately 53% of the population lives in one of the 48 large metropolitan areas in the country. In total, about 76% of the population of the country lives in urban areas and 23% lives in rural ones.

Demographics of Mexico
Population pyramid of Mexico in 2020
Population	130,739,927 (2024 est.)
Density	66.28/km2 (171.7/sq mi) (2024 est.)
Growth rate	0.7% (2024 est.)
Birth rate	12.1 births/1,000 population (2023 est.)
Death rate	6.2 deaths/1,000 population (2023 est.)
Life expectancy	74.6 years (2024 est.)
• male	71.6 years (2024 est.)
• female	77.7 years (2024 est.)
Fertility rate	1.60 children born/woman (2023 est.)
Infant mortality rate	12.1 deaths/1,000 live births (2024 est.)
Net migration rate	−0.70 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2024 est.)
Age structure
0–14 years	23.3% (male 15,647,805/ female 14,754,004) (2024 est.)
15–64 years	68.6% (male 43,651,105/ female 45,983,174) (2024 est.)
65 and over	8.2% (male 4,600,228/ female 6,103,611) (2024 est.)
Sex ratio
Total	0.96 male(s)/female (2024 est.)
At birth	1.05 male(s)/female
Under 15	1.06 male(s)/female
15–64 years	0.95 male(s)/female
65 and over	0.75 male(s)/female
Nationality
Nationality	Mexican
Language
Official	Spanish (99.4%) & 68 native languages
Spoken	Languages of Mexico

Demographic censuses are performed by the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía. The National Population Council (CONAPO) is an institution under the Ministry of Interior in charge of the analysis and research of population dynamics. The National Institute of Indigenous Peoples also undertakes research and analysis of the sociodemographic and linguistic indicators of the indigenous peoples. Throughout most of the 20th century Mexico's population was characterized by rapid growth. Although this tendency has been reversed and average annual population growth over the last five years was less than 1%, the demographic transition is still in progress; Mexico still has a large youth cohort.

Demographic dynamics

See also: Mexicans

Mestiza woman clad in indigenous clothes

Historical population of Mexico

Population growth

Mexican states by population density

Historical population

Year	Pop.	±%
1500	12,000,000	—
1600	1,500,000	−87.5%
1700	4,000,000	+166.7%
1800	6,000,000	+50.0%
1832	7,000,000	+16.7%
1865	8,259,080	+18.0%
1895	12,700,294	+53.8%
1900	13,607,272	+7.1%
1910	15,160,369	+11.4%
1921	14,334,780	−5.4%
1930	16,552,722	+15.5%
1940	19,653,552	+18.7%
1950	25,791,017	+31.2%
1960	34,923,129	+35.4%
1970	48,225,238	+38.1%
1980	66,846,833	+38.6%
1990	81,249,645	+21.5%
2000	97,483,412	+20.0%
2010	112,336,538	+15.2%
2020	126,014,024	+12.2%
Source: INEGI

Estimates vary for the Pre-Columbian population of Mexico from 1.5 million to 21 million, but the most accepted figure is about 12 million people, including the population of the Aztec Empire which is estimated at 6 million people. In 1600, the population was estimated to have been around 1 to 2 million and in 1700, the population was estimated to be around 4 million. In 1900, the Mexican population was 13.6 million. During the period of economic prosperity that was dubbed by economists as the "Mexican Miracle", the government invested in efficient social programs that reduced the infant mortality rate and increased life expectancy. These measures jointly led to an intense demographic increase between 1930 and 1980.

Intense population growth in the northern states, especially along the US-Mexican border, changed the country's demographic profile in the second half of the 20th century, as the 1967 US-Mexico maquiladora agreement through which all products manufactured in the border cities could be imported duty-free to the US. Since the adoption of NAFTA in 1994, however, which allows all products to be imported duty-free regardless of their place of origin within Mexico, the non-border maquiladora share of exports has increased while that of border cities has decreased. This has led to decentralization and rapid economic growth in Mexican states (and cities), such as Quintana Roo (Cancun), Baja California Sur (La Paz), Nuevo León (Monterrey), Querétaro, and Aguascalientes whose population grew by more than one-third from 2000 to 2015, while the whole of Mexico grew by 22.6% in this period.

While the national annual growth rate was still positive (1.0%) in the early years of the 2000s, the national net migration rate was negative (-4.75/1000 inhabitants), in the 2010s, however, the net migration rate reached 0, given the strong economy of Mexico, changes in US Immigration Policy & Enforcement, US Legislative and CFR-8 decisions, plus the (then) slowly recovering US economy, causing many of its former residents to return. Given the former strong flow of immigrants to the United States; an estimated 5.3 million undocumented Mexican immigrants lived in the United States in 2004 and 18.2 million American citizens in the 2000 Census declared having Mexican ancestry.

The population's annual growth rate has been reduced from a 3.5% peak in 1965 to 0.99% in 2005. While Mexico is now transitioning to the third phase of demographic transition, close to 50% of the population in 2009 was 25 years old or younger. Fertility rates have also decreased from 5.7 children per woman in 1976 to 1.9 in 2020. After decades of the gap narrowing, in 2020 the fertility rate in Mexico fell below the United States for the first time falling 22% in 2020 and a further 10.5% in the first half of 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Mexican government projects that the country's population will grow to about 123 million by 2042 and then start declining slowly. Assumptions underlying this projection include fertility stabilizing at 1.85 children per woman and continued high net emigration (slowly decreasing from 583,000 in 2005 to 393,000 in 2050).

Mexico is composed of 32 federal entities which include 31 states and Mexico City, the five most populous federal entities in 2020 were the State of Mexico (16.9 million), Mexico City (9.2 million), Jalisco (8.3 million), Veracruz (8.0 million) and Puebla (6.5 million), which collectively contain around 40% of the national population. The Greater Mexico City metro area, which includes Mexico City and adjacent municipalities of surrounding states, is the most populous in the country and is estimated to be the second most populous in the world (after Tokyo), according to the UN Urbanization Report.

The average annual population growth rate of Mexico City was 0.2%. The state with the lowest population growth rate over the same period was Michoacán (-0.1%), whereas the states with the highest population growth rates were Quintana Roo (4.7%) and Baja California Sur (3.4%), both of which are two of the least populous states and the last to be admitted to the Union in the 1970s. The average annual net migration rate of Mexico City over the same period was negative and the lowest of all political divisions of Mexico, whereas the states with the highest net migration rate were Quintana Roo (2.7), Baja California (1.8) and Baja California Sur (1.6).

UN estimates

Mexico's population pyramid (2017)

According to the 2012 revision of the World Population Prospects, the total population was 117,886,000 in 2010, compared to only 28,296,000 in 1950. The proportion of children below the age of 15 in 2010 was 30%, 64% of the population was between 15 and 65 years of age, and 6% was 65 years or older.

	Total population (x 1000)	Proportion aged 0–14 (%)	Proportion aged 15–64 (%)	Proportion aged 65+ (%)
1950	28 296	42.5	54.1	3.5
1955	33 401	44.5	52.2	3.3
1960	38 677	45.9	50.8	3.4
1965	45 339	46.8	49.6	3.5
1970	52 988	46.6	49.7	3.7
1975	61 708	46.2	50.1	3.7
1980	70 353	44.7	51.5	3.8
1985	77 859	42.1	53.9	3.9
1990	86 077	38.5	57.2	4.3
1995	95 393	35.9	59.6	4.5
2000	103 874	34.1	61.0	4.9
2005	110 732	32.3	62.4	5.3
2010	117 886	30.0	64.0	6.0
2015	127 017	27.6	65.9	6.5
2020	134 837	25.6	66.9	7.6

Structure of the population

Population by Sex and Age Group (Census 12.VI.2010; including an estimation of 1 334 585 people corresponding to 448 195 housing units without information of the occupants):

Age Group	Male	Female	Total	%
Total	54 855 231	57 481 307	112 336 538	100
0–4	5 346 943	5 181 379	10 528 322	9.37
5–9	5 604 175	5 443 362	11 047 537	9.83
10–14	5 547 613	5 392 324	10 939 937	9.74
15–19	5 520 121	5 505 991	11 026 112	9.82
20–24	4 813 204	5 079 067	9 892 271	8.81
25–29	4 205 975	4 582 202	8 788 177	7.82
30–34	4 026 031	4 444 767	8 470 798	7.54
35–39	3 964 738	4 328 249	8 292 987	7.38
40–44	3 350 322	3 658 904	7 009 226	6.24
45–49	2 824 364	3 104 366	5 928 730	5.28
50–54	2 402 451	2 661 840	5 064 291	4.51
55–59	1 869 537	2 025 828	3 895 365	3.47
60–64	1 476 667	1 639 799	3 116 466	2.77
65–69	1 095 273	1 221 992	2 317 265	2.06
70–74	873 893	1 000 041	1 873 934	1.67
75–79	579 689	665 794	1 245 483	1.11
80–84	355 277	443 659	798 936	0.71
85–89	197 461	256 703	454 164	0.40
90–94	68 130	96 794	164 924	0.15
95–99	25 920	39 812	65 732	0.06
100+	7 228	11 247	18 475	0.02
Age group	Male	Female	Total	Percent
0–14	16 498 731	16 017 065	32 515 796	28.94
15–64	34 453 410	37 031 013	71 484 423	63.63
65+	3 202 871	3 736 042	6 938 913	6.18
unknown	700 219	697 187	1 397 406	1.24

Population by Sex and Age Group (Census 15.III.2020) (Including an estimation of 6 337 751 persons corresponding to 1 588 422 housing units without information of the occupants.):

Age group	Male	Female	Total	%
Total	61 473 390	64 540 634	126 014 024	100
0–4	5 077 482	4 969 883	10 047 365	7.97
5–9	5 453 091	5 311 288	10 764 379	8.54
10–14	5 554 260	5 389 280	10 943 540	8.68
15–19	5 462 150	5 344 540	10 806 690	8.57
20–24	5 165 884	5 256 211	10 422 095	8.27
25–29	4 861 404	5 131 597	9 993 001	7.93
30–34	4 527 726	4 893 101	9 420 827	7.47
35–39	4 331 530	4 668 746	9 020 276	7.15
40–44	4 062 304	4 441 282	8 503 586	6.74
45–49	3 812 344	4 130 069	7 942 413	6.30
50–54	3 332 163	3 705 360	7 037 532	5.58
55–59	2 692 976	3 002 982	5 695 958	4.52
60–64	2 257 862	2 563 200	4 821 062	3.82
65–69	1 706 850	1 938 227	3 645 077	2.89
70–74	1 233 492	1 413 848	2 647 340	2.10
75–79	847 898	966 684	1 814 582	1.43
80–84	523 812	651 552	1 175 364	0.93
85+	433 968	605 583	1 039 551	0.82
Age group	Male	Female	Total	Percent
0–14	16 084 833	15 670 451	31 755 284	25.20
15–64	40 506 343	43 157 097	83 663 440	66.39
65+	4 746 020	5 575 894	10 321 914	8.19
unknown	136 194	137 192	273 386	0.22

Vital statistics

Registered births and deaths

Source: Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informática (INEGI)

	Average population	Live births	Deaths	Natural change	Crude birth rate (per 1000)	Crude death rate (per 1000)	Natural change (per 1000)	Crude migration change (per 1000)	TFR	Life expentancy
1936		786,388
1937		820,469
1938		822,586			43.5
1939		857,951			44.6
1940	19,763,000	875,471			44.3
1941	20,208,000	878,935			43.5
1942	20,657,000	940,067			45.5
1943	21,165,000	963,317			45.5
1944	21,674,000	958,119			44.2
1945	22,233,000	999,093			44.9
1946	22,779,000	994,838	442,935	551,903	43.7	19.4	24.3
1947	23,440,000	1,079,816	390,087	689,729	46.1	16.6	29.5
1948	24,129,000	1,090,867	407,708	683,159	44.7	16.9	27.8
1949	24,833,000	1,109,446	438,970	670,476	46.0	17.7	28.3
1950	28,296,000	1,174,947	418,430	756,517	41.5	14.8	26.7
1951	29,110,000	1,183,788	458,238	725,550	40.7	15.7	24.9	3.9
1952	29,980,000	1,195,209	408,823	786,386	39.9	13.6	26.2	3.7
1953	30,904,000	1,261,775	446,127	815,648	40.8	14.4	26.4	4.4
1954	31,880,000	1,339,837	378,752	961,085	42.0	11.9	30.1	1.5
1955	32,906,000	1,377,917	407,522	970,395	41.9	12.4	29.5	2.7
1956	33,978,000	1,427,722	368,740	1,058,982	42.0	10.9	31.2	1.4
1957	35,095,000	1,485,202	414,545	1,070,657	42.3	11.8	30.5	2.4
1958	36,253,000	1,447,578	404,529	1,043,049	39.9	11.2	28.8	4.2
1959	37,448,000	1,589,606	396,924	1,192,682	42.4	10.6	31.8	1.2
1960	38,677,000	1,608,174	402,545	1,205,629	41.6	10.4	31.2	1.6
1961	39,939,000	1,647,006	388,857	1,258,149	41.2	9.7	31.5	1.1
1962	41,234,000	1,705,481	403,046	1,302,435	41.4	9.8	31.6	0.8
1963	42,564,000	1,756,624	412,834	1,343,790	41.3	9.7	31.6	0.7
1964	43,931,000	1,849,408	408,275	1,441,133	42.1	9.3	32.8	-0.7
1965	45,339,000	1,888,171	404,163	1,484,008	41.6	8.9	32.7	-0.6
1966	46,784,000	1,954,340	424,141	1,530,199	41.8	9.1	32.7	-0.8
1967	48,264,000	1,981,363	420,298	1,561,065	41.1	8.7	32.3	-0.7
1968	49,788,000	2,058,251	452,910	1,605,341	41.3	9.1	32.2	-0.6
1969	51,361,000	2,037,561	458,886	1,578,675	39.7	8.9	30.7	0.9
1970	52,988,000	2,132,630	485,656	1,646,974	40.2	9.2	31.1	0.6
1971	54,669,000	2,231,399	458,323	1,773,076	40.8	8.4	32.4	-0.7
1972	56,396,000	2,346,002	476,206	1,869,796	41.6	8.4	33.2	-1.6
1973	58,156,000	2,572,287	458,915	2,113,372	44.2	7.9	36.3	-5.1
1974	59,931,000	2,522,580	433,104	2,089,476	42.1	7.2	34.9	-4.4
1975	61,708,000	2,254,497	435,888	1,818,609	36.5	7.1	29.5	0.2
1976	63,486,000	2,366,305	455,660	1,910,645	37.3	7.2	30.1	-1.3	5.7
1977	65,261,000	2,379,327	450,454	1,928,873	36.5	6.9	29.6	-1.6
1978	67,013,000	2,346,862	418,381	1,928,481	35.0	6.2	28.8	-2.0
1979	68,715,000	2,274,267	428,217	1,846,050	33.1	6.2	26.9	-1.5
1980	70,353,000	2,446,238	434,465	2,011,773	34.8	6.2	28.6	-4.8
1981	71,916,000	2,530,662	424,274	2,106,388	35.2	5.9	29.3	-7.1	4.6
1982	73,416,000	2,392,849	412,345	1,980,504	32.6	5.6	27.0	-6.1
1983	74,880,000	2,609,088	413,403	2,195,685	34.8	5.5	29.3	-9.4
1984	76,351,000	2,511,894	410,550	2,101,344	32.9	5.4	27.5	-7.9
1985	77,859,000	2,655,671	414,003	2,241,668	34.1	5.3	28.8	-9.0
1986	79,410,000	2,577,045	400,079	2,176,966	32.5	5.0	27.4	-7.5
1987	80,999,000	2,794,390	400,280	2,394,110	34.5	4.9	29.6	-10.0	3.8
1988	82,635,000	2,622,031	412,987	2,209,044	31.7	5.0	26.7	-7.1
1989	84,327,000	2,620,262	423,304	2,196,958	31.1	5.0	26.1	-6.1
1990	86,077,000	2,735,312	422,803	2,312,509	31.8	4.9	26.9	-6.7	3.47
1991	87,890,000	2,756,447	411,131	2,345,316	31.4	4.7	26.7	-6.1	3.37
1992	89,758,000	2,797,397	409,814	2,387,583	31.2	4.6	26.6	-5.9	3.27
1993	91,654,000	2,839,686	416,335	2,423,351	31.0	4.5	26.4	-5.9	3.18
1994	93,542,000	2,904,389	419,074	2,485,315	31.0	4.5	26.6	-6.5	3.10
1995	95,393,000	2,750,444	430,278	2,320,166	28.8	4.5	24.3	-5.0	3.02
1996	97,202,000	2,707,718	436,321	2,271,397	27.9	4.5	23.4	-4.8	2.95
1997	98,969,000	2,698,425	440,437	2,257,988	27.3	4.5	22.8	-5.1	2.88
1998	100,679,000	2,668,429	444,665	2,223,764	26.5	4.4	22.1	-5.2	2.82
1999	102,317,000	2,769,089	443,950	2,325,139	27.1	4.3	22.7	-6.8	2.77
2000	103,874,000	2,798,339	437,667	2,360,672	26.9	4.2	22.7	-7.9	2.72
2001	105,340,000	2,767,610	443,127	2,324,483	26.3	4.2	22.1	-8.3	2.67
2002	106,724,000	2,699,084	459,687	2,239,397	25.3	4.3	21.0	-8.1	2.62
2003	108,056,000	2,655,894	472,140	2,183,754	24.6	4.4	20.2	-8.0	2.58
2004	109,382,000	2,625,056	473,417	2,151,639	24.0	4.3	19.7	-7.6	2.54
2005	110,732,000	2,567,906	495,240	2,072,666	23.2	4.5	18.7	-6.6	2.50
2006	112,117,000	2,505,939	494,471	2,011,468	22.4	4.4	17.9	-5.7	2.46
2007	113,530,000	2,655,083	514,420	2,140,663	23.4	4.5	18.9	-6.5	2.42
2008	114,968,000	2,636,110	539,530	2,096,580	22.9	4.7	18.2	-5.8	2.39
2009	116,423,000	2,577,214	564,673	2,012,541	22.1	4.9	17.3	-4.8	2.36
2010	114,255,000	2,643,908	592,018	2,051,890	23.1	5.2	17.9	-36.2	2.34	74.3
2011	115,683,000	2,586,287	590,693	1,995,594	22.3	5.1	17.2	-5.5	2.32	74.7
2012	117,054,000	2,498,880	602,354	1,896,526	21.3	5.1	16.2	-4.5	2.29	74.9
2013	118,395,000	2,478,889	623,599	1,855,290	20.9	5.3	15.6	-4.4	2.27	75.2
2014	119,713,000	2,463,420	633,641	1,829,779	20.5	5.3	15.2	-4.3	2.21	75.1
2015	121,005,000	2,353,596	655,694	1,697,902	19.4	5.4	14.0	-3.4	2.22	75.1
2016	122,298,000	2,293,708	685,763	1,607,945	18.8	5.6	13.2	-2.5	2.19	74.8
2017	123,415,000	2,234,039	703,047	1,530,992	18.1	5.8	12.3	-3.2	2.17	74.8
2018	124,738,000	2,162,535	722,611	1,439,924	17.3	5.8	11.5	-0.8	2.07	74.9
2019	125,930,000	2,092,214	747,784	1,344,430	16.5	5.9	10.6	-1.0	2.09	74.8
2020	126,014,024	1,629,211	1,086,743	542,468	12.9	8.6	4.3	-3.6	1.63(e)	68.9
2021	126,705,138	1,912,178	1,122,249	789,929	15.1	8.8	6.3	-0.8	1.91(e)	68.8
2022	127,500,000(e)	1,891,388	847,716	1,043,672	14.8	6.7	8.1	-1.9	1.94(e)	75.2
2023	128,500,000(e)	1,820,888	794,739	1,026,149	14.2	6.2	8.0		1.60	75.3

Current vital statistics

Period	Live births	Deaths	Natural increase
January – March 2023		207,439
January – March 2024		212,404
Difference		+4,965 (+2.39%)

Estimates

The following estimates were prepared by the Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informatica:

Life expectancy in Mexico since 1893

Life expectancy in Mexico since 1960 by gender

	Crude birth rate (per 1000)	Crude death rate (per 1000)	Natural change (per 1000)	Total fertility rate
1976				5.7
1981				4.4
1987				3.8
1990	27.9	5.6	22.3	3.4
1991	27.5	5.5	22.0	3.3
1992	27.1	5.4	21.7	3.2
1993	26.8	5.3	21.5	3.1
1994	26.3	5.2	21.1	3.0
1995	25.9	5.2	20.7	3.0
1996	25.4	5.1	20.3	2.9
1997	24.8	5.1	19.7	2.8
1998	24.3	5.1	19.2	2.8
1999	23.9	5.1	18.8	2.7
2000	23.4	5.1	18.3	2.6
2001	23.0	5.1	17.9	2.6
2002	22.6	5.1	17.5	2.6
2003	22.2	5.2	17.0	2.5
2004	21.8	5.2	16.6	2.5
2005	21.5	5.2	16.3	2.5
2006	21.1	5.3	15.8	2.4
2007	20.8	5.3	15.5	2.4
2008	20.4	5.4	15.0	2.3
2009	20.1	5.5	14.6	2.3
2010	19.7	5.6	14.1	2.3
2011	19.4	5.6	13.8	2.3
2012	19.2	5.7	13.5	2.2
2013	19.0	5.7	13.3	2.2
2014	18.7	5.7	13.0	2.2
2015	18.5	5.7	12.8	2.2
2016	18.3	5.8	12.5	2.2

Life expectancy from 1893 to 1950

Life expectancy in Mexico from 1893 to 1950. Source: Our World In Data

Years	1893	1894	1895	1896	1897	1898	1899	1900	1901	1902	1903	1904	1905	1906	1907	1908	1909	1910
Life expectancy in Mexico	23.3	26.6	29.5	28.8	26.2	27.0	25.0	25.0	26.7	28.4	28.7	29.1	26.8	27.8	28.0	28.7	29.2	28.0

Years	1920	1922	1923	1924	1925	1926	1927	1928	1929	1930
Life expectancy in Mexico	34.0	32.6	33.5	32.8	32.1	34.2	40.3	34.5	35.4	34.0

Years	1931	1932	1933	1934	1935	1936	1937	1938	1939	1940
Life expectancy in Mexico	37.7	38.4	37.3	38.2	40.4	38.3	36.8	39.4	45.5	39.0

Years	1941	1942	1943	1944	1945	1946	1947	1948	1949	1950
Life expectancy in Mexico	42.6	39.8	42.8	43.2	44.2	44.8	46.3	48.3	45.8	50.7

UN estimates

The Population Department of the United Nations prepared the following estimates.

Period	Live births per year	Deaths per year	Natural change per year	CBR*	CDR*	NC*	TFR*	IMR*	Life expectancy total	Life expectancy males	Life expectancy females
1950–1955	1 469 000	509 000	959 000	48.3	16.7	31.6	6.75	121	50.7	48.9	52.5
1955–1960	1 675 000	483 000	1 193 000	46.6	13.5	33.1	6.78	102	55.3	53.3	57.3
1960–1965	1 878 000	481 000	1 397 000	44.6	11.5	33.1	6.75	88	58.5	56.4	60.6
1965–1970	2 147 000	510 000	1 637 000	43.6	10.4	33.2	6.75	80	60.3	58.2	62.5
1970–1975	2 434 000	521 000	1 913 000	43.7	9.2	34.5	6.71	69	62.6	60.1	65.2
1975–1980	2 406 000	490 000	1 916 000	37.2	7.5	29.7	5.40	57	65.3	62.2	68.6
1980–1985	2 352 000	470 000	1 882 000	32.3	6.3	26.0	4.37	47	67.7	64.4	71.2
1985–1990	2 385 000	466 000	1 919 000	29.7	5.7	24.0	3.75	40	69.8	66.8	73.0
1990–1995	2 493 000	470 000	2 022 000	27.4	5.2	22.3	3.23	33	71.8	69.0	74.6
1995–2000	2 535 000	471 000	2 064 000	25.2	4.8	20.5	2.85	28	73.3	71.3	76.1
2000–2005	2 449 000	492 000	1 958 000	23.0	4.6	18.4	2.61	21	75.1	72.4	77.4
2005–2010	2 355 000	513 000	1 841 000	20.7	4.6	16.1	2.40	17	75.1	73.7	78.6
2010–2015	2 353 000	579 000	1 774 000	19.4	4.8	14.6	2.29		74.9
2015–2020	2 291 000	635 000	1 656 000	17.6	4.9	12.7	2.14		74.9
2020–2025	2 206 000	699 000	1 507 000	16.0	5.1	11.0	2.00
2025–2030	2 105 000	773 000	1 332 000	14.6	5.4	9.2	1.89
2030–2035	2 014 000	860 000	1 154 000	13.4	5.7	7.7	1.81
2035–2040	1 936 000	960 000	976 000	12.5	6.2	6.3	1.76
* CBR = crude birth rate (per 1000); CDR = crude death rate (per 1000); NC = natural change (per 1000); IMR = infant mortality rate per 1000 births; TFR = total fertility rate (number of children per woman)

International migration

Immigration to Mexico

Main article: Immigration to Mexico

Place	Foreign-born population in Mexico	2020
1	United States	797,266
2	Guatemala	56,810
3	Venezuela	52,948
4	Colombia	36,234
5	Honduras	35,361
6	Cuba	25,976
7	Spain	20,763
8	El Salvador	19,736
9	Argentina	18,693
10	Canada	12,439
11	China	10,547
12	France	9,080
13	Brazil	8,689
14	Peru	8,670
15	Germany	6,860
16	Italy	6,619
17	Chile	6,532
18	Haiti	5,895
19	Nicaragua	5,731
20	Japan	5,539
21	South Korea	5,339
22	United Kingdom	4,030
23	Ecuador	3,995
24	Costa Rica	3,803
25	Dominican Republic	2,849
26	Belize	2,813
27	Uruguay	2,706
28	India	2,656
29	Bolivia	2,505
30	Russia	2,321
31	Panama	1,916
32	Switzerland	1,439
	Other countries	25,492
TOTAL		1,212,252
Source: INEGI (2020)

Niños de Santa Rosa (Children of Santa Rosa), children from Poland, orphaned due to World War II.

Central American migrant caravans Migrants looking for routes on a map of Mexico, November 2018

Aside from the original Spanish colonists, many Europeans immigrated to Mexico in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Non-Spanish immigrant groups included British, Irish, Italian, German, French and Dutch. Large numbers of Middle Eastern immigrants arrived in Mexico during the same period, mostly from Syria and Lebanon. Asian immigrants, mostly Chinese, some via the United States, settled in northern Mexico, whereas Koreans settled in central Mexico. The PRI governments, in power for most of the 20th century, had a policy of granting asylum to fellow Latin Americans fleeing political persecution in their home countries. This led to the arrival of immigrants, mainly political refugees from Argentina, Chile, Cuba, Peru, Colombia and Central America during the 1970s and 1980s.

A second wave of immigrants has come to Mexico as a result of the economic crises experienced by some countries in the region. The Argentine community is quite significant estimated to be somewhere between 11,000 and 30,000. Due to the 2008 Financial Crisis and the resulting economic decline and high unemployment in Spain, many Spaniards have been emigrating to Mexico to seek new opportunities. For example, during the last quarter of 2012, a number of 7,630 work permits were granted to Spaniards. In recent time, the country has also received increasing numbers of refugees and migrants from the Caribbean and Central America.

Mexico is also the country where the largest number of American citizens live abroad, with Mexico City playing host to the largest number of American citizens abroad in the world. The American Citizens Abroad Association estimated in 1999 that a little more than one million Americans live in Mexico (which represent 1% of the population in Mexico and 25% of all American citizens living abroad). This immigration phenomenon could well be explained by the interaction of both countries under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), but also by the fact that Mexico has become a popular destination for retirees, especially the small towns: just in the State of Guanajuato, in San Miguel de Allende and its surroundings, 10,000 Americans have their residence.

Discrepancies between the figures of official legal immigrants and all foreign-born residents is quite large. The official figure for foreign-born residents in Mexico in 2020 was 1,212,252, with the majority being born in the United States, who also are the most common immigrant group across the country's states with the exception of the state of Chiapas, where the majority of immigrants are from Central America. The six states with the most immigrants are Baja California (12.1% of total immigrants), Mexico City (11.4%), Jalisco (9.9%), Chihuahua (9%) and Tamaulipas (7.3%).

Emigration from Mexico

Trend of Mexican migration to the United States. Here the term immigrant refers to those who were not born in the U.S. but are now currently residing in the U.S. This can include naturalized U.S. citizens, legal permanent residents, employees and students on visas, and the undocumented.

The national net migration rate of Mexico is negative, estimated at -1.8 migrants per 1,000 population as of 2017. The great majority of Mexican emigrants have moved to the United States of America, this migration phenomenon has been a defining feature in the relationship of both countries for most of the 20th century. During World Wars I and II, the United States government approved the recruitment of Mexican workers in their territory, and tolerated unauthorized migration to obtain additional farm and industrial workers to fill the necessary spots vacated by the population in war, and to supply the increase in the demand for labor. Nonetheless, the United States unilaterally ended the wartime programs, in part as a result of arguments from labor and from civil-rights groups. In spite of that, emigration of Mexicans continued at varying rates, growing significantly during the 1990s and the first years of the 2000s, it has been estimated that 37% of all Mexican immigrants to the United States in the 20th century arrived during the 1990s. In the year 2000 approximately 20 million American residents identified themselves as either Mexican, Mexican-Americans or of Mexican origin, making "Mexican" the sixth-most cited ancestry of all US residents.

The San Ysidro Port of Entry is the fourth busiest border checkpoint in the world. Most traffic is related to commerce or day workers, rather than immigration.

In the year 2000 the INEGI estimated that about eight million Mexican-born people, which then was equivalent to 8.7% of the population of Mexico itself, lived in the United States of America and according to the Pew Hispanic Center in 2006, an estimated ten percent of all Mexican citizens lived in the United States. For the 2015-2020 period the states who sent the highest percentages of migrants to the United States were Guanajuato (7.8%), Jalisco (7.5%), Michoacán (6.3%) y el Estado de México (5.4%), with the total number of migrants being 803 thousand people, the great majority being men and approximately 30% of them coming from rural communities. For the same period, it was reported that 178 thousand migrants returned to Mexico.

The population of Mexican immigrants residing illegally in the United States fell from around seven million in 2007 to about 6.1 million in 2011. This trajectory has been linked to the economic downturn which started in 2008 and which reduced available jobs, and to the introduction of stricter immigration laws in many States. According to the Pew Hispanic Center the total number of Mexican-born people had stagnated in 2010 and then began to fall. After the Mexican-American community, Mexican Canadians are the second-largest group of emigrant Mexicans, with a population of over 90,000. A significant but unknown number of mestizos of Mexican descent migrated to the Philippines during the era of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, when the Philippines was a territory under the rule of Mexico city. Mexicans live throughout Latin America as well as in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, and the United Arab Emirates.

Emigration list from Mexico Mexican residents in the world by countries
Country	Population	Position	Continent
United States	36,300,000	1	North America
Canada	90,585	2	North America
Spain	56,757	3	Europe
Guatemala	14,481	4	North America
Bolivia	13,377	5	South America
Germany	8,848	6	Europe
Argentina	6,750	7	South America
United Kingdom	5,125	8	Europe
Australia	4,872	9	Oceania
France	4,601	10	Europe
Israel	4,252	11	Asia
Netherlands	3,758	12	Europe
Italy	3,485	13	Europe
Venezuela	3,075	14	South America
Sweden	2,794	15	Europe
Belize	2,349	16	North America
Costa Rica	2,327	17	North America
Panama	2,299	18	North America
Colombia	2,286	19	South America
Chile	1,874	20	South America
Paraguay	1,778	21	South America
The list includes also temporary residents (1–3 years' stay)

Cities and metropolitan areas

Settlements, cities and municipalities

Main article: List of cities in Mexico

See also: Municipalities of Mexico

Most populated municipalities
Municipality of Guadalajara
Municipality	Pop. (2020)
Mexico City	9,209,944
Tijuana	1,922,523
León	1,721,215
Puebla	1,692,181
Ecatepec	1,645,352
Juárez	1,512,450

In 2010, Mexico had more than 189,432 localidades (lit. "localities" or "settlements"), which are census-designated places defined as a small town, a large city, or simply as a single unit housing in a rural area whether situated remotely or close to an urban area. Localities with more than 2,500 inhabitants are considered urban settlements whereas thos with less than 2500 inhabitants are considered rural settlements. In 2010 there were 3,021 cities with a population between 2,500 and 15,000 inhabitants, 413 with a population between 15,000 and 50,000 inhabitants, 86 with a population between 50,000 and 100,000, 95 with a population between 100,000 and 500,000, 25 with a population between 500,000 and one million and 11 with a population of more than one million. Urban areas contain 76.81% of Mexico's total population and rural settlements contain 23% of the population.

Municipalities (municipios in Spanish) and boroughs (delegaciones in Spanish) are incorporated places in Mexico, that is, second or third-level political divisions with internal autonomy, legally prescribed limits, powers and functions. In terms of second-level political divisions there are 2,477 municipalities, including 16 semi-autonomous boroughs all within Mexico city. A municipality can be constituted by one or more cities one of which is the cabecera municipal (municipal seat). Cities are usually contained within the limits of a single municipality, with a few exceptions in which small areas of one city may extend to other adjacent municipalities without incorporating the city which serves as the municipal seat of the adjacent municipality. Some municipalities or cities within municipalities are further divided into delegaciones or boroughs. However, unlike the boroughs of the Federal District, these are third-level administrative divisions; they have very limited autonomy and no elective representatives.

Municipalities in central Mexico are usually very small in area and thus coextensive with cities (as is the case of Guadalajara, Puebla and León), whereas municipalities in northern and southeastern Mexico are much larger and usually contain more than one city or town that may not necessarily conform a single urban agglomeration (as is the case of Tijuana).

Metropolitan areas

Main article: Metropolitan areas of Mexico

Mexican woman from Ajuchitlán del Progreso, a Nahua area, (2021).

A metropolitan area in Mexico is defined as a group of municipalities that heavily interact with each other, usually around a core city. In 2004, a joint effort between CONAPO, INEGI and the Ministry of Social Development (SEDESOL) agreed to define metropolitan areas as either:

• a group of two or more municipalities in which a city with a population of at least 50,000 is located whose urban area extends over the limit of the municipality that originally contained the core city incorporating either physically or under its area of direct influence other adjacent predominantly urban municipalities all of which have a high degree of social and economic integration or are relevant for urban politics and administration; or
• a single municipality in which a city of a population of at least one million is located and fully contained, (that is, it does not transcend the limits of a single municipality); or
• a city with a population of at least 250,000 which forms a conurbation with other cities in the United States of America.

In 2020 there were 48 metropolitan areas in Mexico, in which close to 53% of the country's population lives. The most populous metropolitan area in Mexico is the Metropolitan Area of the Valley of Mexico, or Greater Mexico City, which in 2020 had a population of 21.8 million, or around 18% of the nation's population. The next four largest metropolitan areas in Mexico are Greater Monterrey (5.3 million), Greater Guadalajara (5.2 million), Greater Puebla (3.2 million) and Greater Toluca (2.3 million), whose added population, along with Greater Mexico City, is equivalent to nearly 30% of the nation's population. Greater Mexico City was the fastest growing metropolitan area in the country since the 1930s until the late 1980s. Since then, the country has slowly become economically and demographically less centralized. From 2000 to 2005 the average annual growth rate of Greater Mexico City was the lowest of the five largest metropolitan areas, whereas the fastest growing metropolitan area was Puebla (2.0%) followed by Monterrey (1.9%), Toluca (1.8%) and Guadalajara (1.8%).

Largest metropolitan areas in Mexico 2020 National Population Census
	Rank	Name	State	Pop.	Rank	Name	State	Pop.
Valley of Mexico Monterrey	1	Valley of Mexico	Mexico City, State of Mexico, Hidalgo	21,804,515	11	Aguascalientes	Aguascalientes	1,225,432	Guadalajara Puebla–Tlaxcala
	2	Monterrey	Nuevo León	5,341,171	12	San Luis Potosí	San Luis Potosí	1,221,526
	3	Guadalajara	Jalisco	5,286,642	13	Mérida	Yucatán	1,201,000
	4	Puebla–Tlaxcala	Puebla, Tlaxcala	3,199,530	14	Mexicali	Baja California	1,031,779
	5	Toluca	State of Mexico	2,353,924	15	Saltillo	Coahuila	1,031,779
	6	Tijuana	Baja California	2,157,853	16	Cuernavaca	Morelos	1,028,589
	7	León	Guanajuato	1,924,771	17	Culiacán	Sinaloa	1,003,530
	8	Querétaro	Querétaro	1,594,212	18	Morelia	Michoacán	988,704
	9	Juárez	Chihuahua	1,512,450	19	Chihuahua	Chihuahua	988,065
	10	La Laguna	Coahuila, Durango	1,434,283	20	Veracruz	Veracruz	939,046

Other demographic statistics

The Mexican mestizo population is the most diverse of all the mestizo groups of Latin America, with its mestizos being either largely European or Amerindian rather than having a uniform admixture. Distribution of Admixture Estimates for Individuals from Mexico City and Quetalmahue (indigenous community in Chile).

Regional variation of ancestry according to a study made by Ruiz-Linares in 2014, each dot represents a volunteer, with most coming from south Mexico and Mexico City.

Map of Genetic Studies of the United Mexican States.

Trivate for ancestry, from the same study as the image above.

Demographic statistics according to the 2022 World Population Review.

• One birth every 15 seconds
• One death every 39 seconds
• One net migrant every 9 minutes
• Net gain of one person every 24 seconds

Demographic statistics according to the CIA World Factbook, unless otherwise indicated.

Median age

total: 30.6 years (2023 est.). Country comparison to the world: 130th

male: 28.2 years

female: 30.4 years (2020 est.)

total: 28.6 years Country comparison to the world: 135th

male: 27.5 years

female: 29.7 years (2018 est.)

Contraceptive prevalence rate

73.1% (2018)

66.9% (2015)

Mother's mean age at first birth

21.3 years (2008 est.)

Major infectious diseases

degree of risk: intermediate (2020)

food or waterborne diseases: bacterial diarrhea and hepatitis A

vectorborne diseases: dengue fever

Note: a new coronavirus is causing sustained community spread of respiratory illness (COVID-19) in Mexico; sustained community spread means that people have been infected with the virus, but how or where they became infected is not known, and the spread is ongoing; illness with this virus has ranged from mild to severe with fatalities reported; as of June 6, 2022, Mexico has reported a total of 5,782,405 cases of COVID-19 or 4,484.8 cumulative cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 population with a total of 324,966 cumulative deaths or a rate of 252 cumulative deaths per 100,000 population; as of May 20, 2022, 66.68% of the population has received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine.

Dependency ratios

total dependency ratio: 51.4 (2015 est.)

youth dependency ratio: 41.6 (2015 est.)

elderly dependency ratio: 9.8 (2015 est.)

potential support ratio: 10.2 (2015 est.)

Urbanization

urban population: 81.3% of total population (2022)

rate of urbanization: 1.4% annual rate of change (2020–25 est.)

urban population: 80.2% of total population (2018)

rate of urbanization: 1.59% annual rate of change (2015–20 est.)

Obesity – adult prevalence rate

28.9% (2016) Country comparison to the world: 29th

Children under the age of 5 years underweight

4.7% (2018/19) Country comparison to the world: 80th

4.2% (2016) Country comparison to the world: 87th

Education expenditures

4.3% of GDP (2018) Country comparison to the world: 92nd

5.2% of GDP (2015) Country comparison to the world: 59th

Literacy

definition: age 15 and over can read and write (2016 est.)

total population: 95.2%

male: 96.1%

female: 94.5% (2020)

School life expectancy (primary to tertiary education)

total: 15 years

male: 15 years

female: 15 years (2019)

Unemployment, youth ages 15–24

total: 8.1%

male: 7.8%

female: 8.7% (2020 est.)

Ethnic groups

Children from the American Institute school in Monterrey mimic the pose of Inuit artist Bill Nasogaluak's Inukshuk.

Mexico is ethnically diverse. The second article of the Mexican Constitution defines the country to be a pluricultural state originally based on its indigenous peoples.

Regardless of ethnicity, the majority of Mexicans are united under the same national identity. This is the product of an ideology strongly promoted by Mexican academics such as Manuel Gamio and José Vasconcelos known as mestizaje, whose goal was that of Mexico becoming a racially and culturally homogeneous country. The ideology's influence was reflected in Mexico's national censuses of 1921 and 1930: in the former, which was Mexico's first-ever national census (but second-ever if the census made in colonial times is taken into account) that considered race, approximately 60% of Mexico's population identified as Mestizos, and in the latter, Mexico's government declared that all Mexicans were now Mestizos, for which racial classifications would be dropped in favor of language-based ones in future censuses.

During most of the 20th century these censuses' results were taken as fact, with extraofficial international publications often using them as a reference to estimate Mexico's racial composition, but in recent time historians and academics have claimed that said results are not accurate, as in its efforts to homogenize Mexico, the government inflated the Mestizo label's percentage by classifying a good number of people as such regardless of whether they were of actual mixed ancestry or not, pointing out that an alteration so drastic of population trends compared to earlier censuses such as New Spain's 1793 census (on which Europeans were estimated to be 18% to 22% of the population, Mestizos 21% to 25%, and Indigenous peoples 51% to 61%) is not possible.

Mestizo Mexicans

Main article: Mestizos in Mexico

President Porfirio Diaz was of Mestizo descent.

A large majority of Mexicans have been classified as "Mestizos", meaning in modern Mexican usage that they neither identify fully with any indigenous culture nor with a Spanish cultural heritage, but rather identify as having cultural traits incorporating elements from both indigenous and Spanish traditions. By the deliberate efforts of post-revolutionary governments, the "Mestizo identity" was constructed as the base of the modern Mexican national identity, through a process of cultural synthesis referred to as mestizaje [mestiˈsaxe]. Mexican politicians and reformers such as José Vasconcelos and Manuel Gamio were instrumental in building a Mexican national identity upon this concept, which were designed with the main goal of "helping" indigenous peoples to achieve the same level of progress as the rest of society by transforming indigenous communities into Mestizo ones, eventually assimilating them into the Mestizo Mexican society.

As the Mestizo identity promoted by the government is more of a cultural identity, it has achieved a strong influence in the country and has caused many people who may not qualify as "Mestizos" in its original sense to be counted as such in Mexico's demographic investigations and censuses, with many people who may be considered "White" being historically classified as Mestizos. A similar situation occurs regarding the distinctions between Indigenous peoples and Mestizos: while the term Mestizo is sometimes used in English with the meaning of a person with mixed indigenous and European blood, In Mexican society an indigenous person can be considered mestizo. and a person with none or a very low percentage of indigenous genetic heritage would be considered fully indigenous either by speaking an indigenous language or by identifying with a particular indigenous cultural heritage. In certain areas of Mexico the word Mestizo has a different meaning: in the Yucatán peninsula it has been used to refer to the Maya-speaking populations living in traditional communities, because during the caste war of the late 19th century those Maya who did not join the rebellion were classified as Mestizos whereas in the state of Chiapas the word "Ladino" is used instead of "mestizo".

Edson Omar Álvarez, Mexican football player.

Given that the word Mestizo has different meanings in Mexico, estimates of the Mexican Mestizo population vary widely. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, which uses a biology-based approach, around three-fifths of the Mexican population is Mestizo while a culture-based criteria estimates a percentage as high as 90%. Paradoxically, the word "Mestizo" has long been dropped from popular Mexican vocabulary with the word even having pejorative connotations, further complicating attempts to quantify Mestizos via self-identification, recent research based on self-identification indeed has observed that many Mexicans do not identify as mestizos and would not agree to be labeled as such, with "static" racial labels such as White, Indian, Black etc. being more commonly used.

Dolores Heredia actress who contributed to representing contemporary Mexican society.

The use of variated methods and criteria to quantify the number of Mestizos in Mexico is not new: Since several decades ago, many authors have analyzed colonial censuses data and have made different conjectures respecting the ethnic composition of the population of colonial Mexico/New Spain. There are Historians such as Gonzalo Aguirre-Beltrán who claimed in 1972 that practically the totality of New Spain's population, in reality, were Mestizos, using to back up his claims arguments such as that affairs of Spaniards with non-Europeans due to the alleged absence of female European immigrants were widespread as well as there being a huge desire of Mestizos to "pass" as Spaniards, this because Spanishness was seen as a symbol of high status.

Other historians, however, point that Aguirre-Beltran's numbers tend to have inconsistencies and take too much liberties (it is pointed out in the book Ensayos sobre historia de la población. México y el Caribe 2 published in 1998 that on 1646, when according to historic registers the mestizo population was of 1% he estimates it to be 16.6% already, with this being attributed to him interpreting the data in a way convenient for a historic narrative), often omitting data of New Spain's northern and western provinces. His self-made classifications thus, although could be plausible, are not useful for precise statistical analysis.

Mexican folklore in La Coruña, Galicia, (Spain).

According 21st-century historians, Aguirre Beltran also disregards facts such as the population dynamics of New Spain being different depending on the region at hand (i.e. miscegenation could not happen in a significant amount in regions where the native population was openly hostile until the early 20th century, such as most of New Spain's internal provinces, which nowadays are the northern and western regions of Mexico), or that historic accounts made by investigators at the time consistently observed that New Spain's European population was notoriously concerned with preserving their European heritage, with practices such as inviting relatives and friends directly from Spain or favoring Europeans for marriage even if they were from a lower socioeconomic level than them being common. Newer publications that do cite Aguirre-Beltran's work take those factors into consideration, stating that the Spaniard/Euromestizo/Criollo ethnic label was composed on its majority by descendants of Europeans, albeit the category may have included people with some non-European ancestry.

Indigenous peoples

Main article: Indigenous peoples of Mexico

President Benito Juarez was of Zapotec ancestry. He became the first Amerindian president in the Americas.

The 2003 General Law of Linguistic Rights of the Indigenous Peoples recognizes 62 indigenous languages as "national languages" which have the same validity as Spanish in all territories in which they are spoken. The recognition of indigenous languages and the protection of indigenous cultures is granted not only to the ethnic groups indigenous to modern-day Mexican territory, but also to other North American indigenous groups that migrated to Mexico from the United States, such as the Kikapú in the 19th century and those who immigrated from Guatemala in the 1980s. The category of "indígena" (indigenous) in Mexico has been defined based on different criteria throughout history. This means that the percentage of the Mexican population defined as "indigenous" varies according to the definition applied. It can be defined narrowly according to linguistic criteria, including only people that speak an Indigenous language. Based on this criterion, approximately 6.1% of the population is Indigenous. Nonetheless, activists for the rights of indigenous peoples have referred to the usage of this criterion for census purposes as "statistical genocide."

Actress Yalitza Aparicio, daughter of a Mixtec father and Triqui mother.

Other surveys made by the Mexican government do count as Indigenous all persons who speak an indigenous language and people who do not speak indigenous languages nor live in indigenous communities but self-identify as Indigenous. According to these criteria, the National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples (Comisión Nacional para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas, or CDI in Spanish) and the INEGI (Mexico's National Institute of Statistics and Geography), state that there are 15.7 million indigenous people in Mexico of many different ethnic groups, which constitute 14.9% of the population in the country, with 1.2% not speaking Spanish. The states with the greatest percentage of people who speak an Amerindian language or identify as Amerindian are Yucatán (59%), Oaxaca (48%), Quintana Roo (39%), Chiapas (28%), Campeche (27%), Hidalgo (24%), Puebla (19%), Guerrero (17%), San Luis Potosí (15%) and Veracruz (15%). Oaxaca is the state with the greatest number of distinct indigenous peoples and languages in the country.

Largest indigenous peoples
Mayas in Chiapas
Group	Number
Nahua peoples (Nawatlaka)	2,445,969
Maya (Maaya)	1,475,575
Zapotec (Binizaa)	777,253
Mixtec (Ñuu sávi)	726,601
Otomí (Hñähñü)	646,875
Totonac (Tachihuiin)	411,266
Source: CDI (2000) [4] Archived September 15, 2019, at the Wayback Machine

The latest intercensal survey carried out by the Mexican government in 2015 reports that Indigenous people make up 21.5% of Mexico's population. In this occasion, people who self-identified as "Indigenous" and people who self-identified as "partially Indigenous" were classified in the "Indigenous" category altogether. Finally, according to the 2020 national Mexican census, 19.4% of the population self-identified as Indigenous and 11.8 million people, or 9.36% of the Mexican population lived in what is designated as "Indigenous households" (households where someone spoke an indigenous language).

Percentage of population aged 3 years or older that considers themselves Indigenous by state (2020 census)
State	Percentage
Between 50% and 100%
Oaxaca	69.2%
Yucatán	65.2%
Between 20% and 50%
Campeche	47.3%
Chiapas	36.8%
Hidalgo	36.7%
Quintana Roo	33.2%
Puebla	33.2%
Guerrero	33.1%
Veracruz	26.9%
Morelos	24.5%
Tabasco	21.4%
Michoacán	20.8%
San Luis Potosí	20.3%
Between 10% and 20%
United Mexican States	19.4%
Tlaxcala	16.5%
Nayarit	15.9%
México	15.7%
Sonora	13.3%
Colima	13.2%
Querétaro	13.2%
Baja California Sur	11.9%
Chihuahua	10.5%
Between 5% and 10%
Sinaloa	9.4%
México D. F.	9.3%
Durango	8.9%
Baja California	8.0%
Jalisco	7.0%
Tamaulipas	6.7%
Nuevo León	6.4%
Guanajuato	6.4%
Aguascalientes	6.2%
Between 0% and 5%
Zacatecas	4.9%
Coahuila	2.1%
Source: Mexican census 2020 INEGI.

White Mexicans

Main article: White Mexicans

An 18th-century portrait of the Fagoaga Arozqueta family, an upper-class family of Basque descent from Mexico City.

White Mexicans are Mexican citizens of full or majority European descent. Spaniards and other Europeans began arriving in Mexico during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire and continued immigrating to the country during colonial and independent Mexico. According to 20th- and 21st-century academics, large scale intermixing between the European immigrants and the native Indigenous peoples would produce a Mestizo group which would become the overwhelming majority of Mexico's population by the time of the Mexican Revolution. However, according to church registers from the colonial times, the majority of Spanish men married with Spanish women. Said registers also put in question other narratives held by contemporary academics, such as European immigrants who arrived to Mexico being almost exclusively men or that "pure Spanish" people were all part of a small powerful elite as Spaniards were often the most numerous ethnic group in the colonial cities as there were menial workers and people in poverty who were of complete Spanish origin. This ethnic group contrasts with the Afro-Mexican and Indigenous Mexican groups in the fact that phenotype (hair color, skin color etc.) is often used as the main criterion to delineate it.

Ricardo Peralta y Fabi mechanical engineer and former astronaut trainee.

Estimates of Mexico's white population differ greatly in both, methodology and percentages given, extra-official sources such as The World Factbook or Latinobarómetro which use the 1921 census results as the base of their estimations calculate this population as only 10%, the results of the 1921 census however, have been contested by various historians and are deemed inaccurate nowadays. Other sources suggest higher percentages: Encyclopædia Britannica estimates them at around 30% of the population, field surveys that use the presence of blond hair as reference to classify a Mexican as white such as one by the Metropolitan Autonomous University of Mexico calculated the percentage of said ethnic group at 23%, with a similar methodology, the American Sociological Association obtained a percentage of 18.8%, having its higher frequency on the North region (22.3%–23.9%) followed by the Center region (18.4%–21.3%) and the South region (11.9%). Another study made by the University College London in collaboration with Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History found that the frequencies of blond hair and light eyes in Mexicans are of 18% and 28% respectively, surveys that use as reference skin color such as those made by Mexico's National Council to Prevent Discrimination and Mexico's National Institute of Statistics and Geography report percentages that range from 27% to 47%.

A study performed in hospitals of Mexico City suggests that socioeconomic factors influence the frequency of Mongolian spots among newborns, as evidenced by the higher prevalence of 85% in newborns from a public institution, typically associated with lower socioeconomic status, compared to a 33% prevalence in newborns from private hospitals, which generally cater to families with higher socioeconomic status. The Mongolian spot appears with a very high frequency (85–95%) in Asian, Native American, and African children. The skin lesion reportedly almost always appears on South American and Mexican children who are racially Mestizos, while having a very low frequency (5–10%) in Caucasian children. According to the Mexican Social Security Institute (shortened as IMSS) nationwide, around half of Mexican babies have the Mongolian spot.

Denise Dresser is a prominent Mexican political scientist, author, and commentator.

Mexico's northern and western regions have the highest percentages of European population, with the majority of the people not having native admixture or being of predominantly European ancestry. In the north and west of Mexico the indigenous tribes were substantially smaller and unlike those found in central and southern Mexico they were mostly nomadic, therefore remaining isolated from colonial population centers, with hostilities between them and Mexican colonists often taking place. This eventually led the northeast region of the country to become the region with the highest proportion of whites during the Spanish colonial period albeit recent migration waves have been changing its demographic trends.

A Mennonite family in Campeche.

While the majority of European immigration to Mexico has been Spanish with the first wave starting with the colonization of America and the last one being a consequence of the Spanish Civil War of 1937, immigrants from other European countries have arrived to Mexico as well. During the Second Mexican Empire, the immigration was mostly French. Then, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, spurred by government policies of Porfirio Díaz, migrants came mainly from Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Ireland, taking advantage of the liberal policies then valid in Mexico, and went into merchant, industrial and educational ventures while others arrived with no or limited capital, as employees or farmers. Most settled in Mexico City, Veracruz, Yucatán, and Puebla. Significant numbers of German immigrants also arrived during and after the First and Second World Wars. Additionally, small numbers of White Americans, Croats, Greeks, Poles, Romanians, Russians, and Ashkenazi Jews came. The European Jewish immigrants joined the Sephardic community that lived in Mexico since colonial times, though many lived as Crypto-Jews, mostly in the northern states of Nuevo León and Tamaulipas. Some communities of European immigrants have remained isolated from the rest of the general population since their arrival, among them the German-speaking Mennonites from Russia of Chihuahua and Durango, and the Venetos of Chipilo, Puebla, which have retained their original languages.

Afro-Mexicans

See also: Afro-Mexicans

Vicente Guerrero, major figure during the late Mexican War of Independence and second President of Mexico, was an Afro-descendent. His father was Mestizo and his mother was Black.

Afro-Mexicans are an ethnic group that predominate in certain areas of Mexico such as the Costa Chica of Oaxaca and the Costa Chica of Guerrero, Veracruz (e.g. Yanga) and in some towns in northern Mexico, mainly in Múzquiz Municipality, Coahuila. The existence of individuals of Sub-Saharan African descent in Mexico has its origins in the slave trade that took place during colonial times and that did not end until 1829 after the consummation of the Mexican independence. The institution was not as prominent as elsewhere in the Americas and was already in decay by the late 1700s, which led to the number of free black people eventually surpassing that of enslaved ones. Although Mexico did not abolish slavery immediately after independence, the expansion of Anglo-American settlement in Texas with their Black slaves became a point of contention between the US and Mexico. The northern territory had been claimed by the Spanish Empire but not settled beyond a few missions. The Mexican government saw a solution to the problem of Indian attacks in the north by inviting immigration by US Americans. Rather than settling in the territory contested by northern Indian groups, the Anglo-Americans and their Black slaves established farming in eastern Texas, contiguous to US territory in Louisiana. Mexican President Anastasio Bustamante, concerned that the US would annex Texas, sought to limit Anglo-American immigration in 1830 and mandated no new slaves in the territory.

Lupita Amondi Nyong'o, Afro-Mexican actress.

Historically, the presence of this ethnic group within the country has been difficult to assess for a number of reasons: their small numbers, heavy intermarriage with other ethnic groups, and Mexico's tradition of defining itself as a Mestizo society or mixing of European and indigenous only. Nowadays this ethnic group also includes people from Africa, the Caribbean and elsewhere in the Americas who have been arriving in recent migration waves to the country.

The majority of Mexico's Afro-descendants are Afromestizos, i.e. "mixed-race".According to the intercensal survey carried out in 2015, 1.2% of the population self-identified as Afro-Mexican with 64.9% (896,829) of them also identifying as indigenous and 9.3% being speakers of indigenous languages. In the 2020 census survey carried out by the Mexican government, Afro-Mexicans were reported to make up 2.04% of the country's population.

Percentage of population aged 3 years or older that considers themselves Afro-Mexican by state (2020 census)
State	Percentage
Between 5% and 10%
Guerrero	8.6%
Between 2.5% and 5%
Oaxaca	4.7%
Baja California Sur	3.3%
Yucatán	3.0%
Quintana Roo	2.8%
Veracruz	2.7%
Between 0% and 2.5%
Campeche	2.1%
United Mexican States	2.0%
México D. F.	2.0%
San Luis Potosí	2.0%
Morelos	1.9%
Colima	1.9%
Querétaro	1.8%
Morelos	1.8%
México	1.7%
Puebla	1.7%
Baja California	1.7%
Nuevo León	1.7%
Jalisco	1.7%
Chihuahua	1.6%
Hidalgo	1.6%
Aguascalientes	1.6%
Tabasco	1.6%
Michoacán	1.5%
Sonora	1.5%
Coahuila	1.5%
Sinaloa	1.4%
Tlaxcala	1.3%
Tamaulipas	1.2%
Chiapas	1.0%
Zacatecas	1.0%
Durango	0.9%
Nayarit	0.8%
Source: Mexican census 2020 INEGI.

Arab Mexicans

Main article: Arab Mexicans

Susana Harp Mexican singer and currently serves as a senator.

An Arab Mexican is a Mexican citizen of Arabic-speaking origin who can be of various ancestral origins. The vast majority of Mexico's 1.1 million Arabs are from either Lebanese, Syrian, Iraqi, or Palestinian background. Immigration of Arabs in Mexico has influenced Mexican culture, in particular food, where they have introduced Kibbeh, Tabbouleh and even created recipes such as Tacos Árabes. By 1765, Dates, which originated from the Middle East, were introduced into Mexico by the Spaniards. The fusion between Arab and Mexican food has highly influenced the Yucatecan cuisine.

Engineer Carlos Slim

Arab immigration to Mexico started in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Roughly 100,000 Arabic-speakers settled in Mexico during this time period. They came mostly from Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, and Iraq and settled in significant numbers in Nayarit, Puebla, Mexico City and the northern part of the country (mainly in the states of Baja California, Tamaulipas, Nuevo León, Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Durango, as well as the city of Tampico and Guadalajara. During the 1948 Israel-Lebanon war and the Six-Day War, thousands of Lebanese left Lebanon for Mexico. They first arrived in Veracruz. Although Arabs made up less than 5% of the total immigrant population in Mexico during the 1930s, they constituted half of the immigrant economic activity. Another concentration of Arab-Mexicans is in Baja California facing the U.S.-Mexican border, esp. in cities of Mexicali in the Imperial Valley U.S./Mexico, and Tijuana across from San Diego with a large Arab American community (about 280,000), some of whose families have relatives in Mexico. 45% of Arab Mexicans are of Lebanese descent.

Salma Hayek, actress and film producer.

The majority of Arab-Mexicans are Christians who belong to the Maronite Church, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Rite Catholic Churches and a scant number are Muslims, The term "Arab Mexican" may include ethnic groups that do not in fact identify as Arab. The inter-ethnic marriage in the Arab community, regardless of religious affiliation, is very high; most community members have only one parent of Arab ancestry. As a result, the Arab community in Mexico shows marked language shift away from Arabic. Only a few speak any Arabic, and such knowledge is often limited to a few basic words. Instead, the majority, especially those of younger generations, speak Spanish as a first language. Today, the most common Arabic surnames in Mexico include Nader, Hayek, Ali, Haddad, Nasser, Malik, Abed, Mansoor, Harb, and Elias.

Asian Mexicans

Main article: Asian Mexicans

Kavka Shishido, drummer and vocalist.

Although Asian Mexicans make up less than 1% of the total population of modern Mexico, they are nonetheless a notable minority. Due to the historical and contemporary perception in Mexican society of what constitutes Asian culture (associated with the Far East rather than the Near East), Asian Mexicans typically refers to those of East Asian descent, and may also include those of South and Southeast Asian descent while Mexicans of West Asian descent are referred to as Arab Mexicans.

Asian immigration began with the arrival of Filipinos to Mexico during the colonial period. For two and a half centuries, between 1565 and 1815, many Filipinos and Mexicans sailed back and forth between Mexico and the Philippines as crews, prisoners, adventurers and soldiers in the Manila-Acapulco Galleon assisting Spain in its trade between Asia and the Americas. Also, on these voyages, thousands of Asian individuals (mostly males) were brought to Mexico as slaves and were called "Chino", which means Chinese, although in reality they were of diverse origins, including Koreans, Japanese, Malays, Filipinos, Javanese, Cambodians, Timorese, and people from Bengal, India, Ceylon, Makassar, Tidore, Terenate, and China. A notable example is the story of Catarina de San Juan (Mirra), an Indian girl captured by the Portuguese and sold into slavery in Manila. She arrived in New Spain and eventually she gave rise to the "China Poblana".

Luis Nishizawa was a Mexican artist.

These early individuals are not very apparent in modern Mexico for two main reasons: the widespread mestizaje of Mexico during the Spanish period and the common practice of Chino slaves to "pass" as Indios (the indigenous people of Mexico) to attain freedom. As had occurred with a large portion of Mexico's black population, over generations the Asian populace was absorbed into the general Mestizo population. Facilitating this miscegenation was the assimilation of Asians into the indigenous population. The indigenous people were legally protected from chattel slavery, and by being recognized as part of this group, Asian slaves could claim they were wrongly enslaved.

Asians, predominantly Chinese, became Mexico's fastest-growing immigrant group from the 1880s to the 1920s, exploding from about 1,500 in 1895 to more than 20,000 in 1910.

Romani Mexicans

Main article: Romani Mexicans

Romani people have settled in Mexico since the colonial era. There are around 50,000 Vlax Romani in Mexico.

Official censuses

Arcelia Ramírez Mexican actress

Historically, population studies and censuses have never been up to the standards that a population as diverse and numerous such as Mexico's require: the first racial census was made in 1793, being also Mexico's (then known as New Spain) first ever nationwide population census. Since only part of its original datasets survive, most of what is known of it comes from essays made by researchers who back in the day used the census' findings as reference for their own works.

More than a century would pass until the Mexican government conducted a new racial census in 1921 (some sources assert that the census of 1895 included a comprehensive racial classification; however, according to the historic archives of Mexico's National Institute of Statistics, that was not the case). While the 1921 census was the last time the Mexican government conducted a census that included a comprehensive racial classification, in recent years it has conducted nationwide surveys to quantify most of the ethnic groups who inhabit the country as well as the social dynamics and inequalities between them.

1793 census

Also known as the "Revillagigedo census" from the name of the Count who ordered that it be conducted, this census was the first nationwide population census of Mexico (then known as the Viceroyalty of New Spain). Most of its original datasets have reportedly been lost, so most of what is known about it nowadays comes from essays and field investigations made by academics who had access to the census data and used it as reference for their works, such as Prussian geographer Alexander von Humboldt.

Each author gives different estimations for each racial group in the country although they do not vary greatly, with Europeans ranging from 18% to 22% of New Spain's population, Mestizos from 21% to 25%, Indians from 51% to 61%, and Africans from 6,000 and 10,000. The estimations given for the total population range from 3,799,561 to 6,122,354. It is concluded then, that across nearly three centuries of colonization, the population growth trends of whites and mestizos were even, while the total percentage of the indigenous population decreased at a rate of 13%–17% per century. The authors assert that rather than whites and mestizos having higher birthrates, the reason for the indigenous population's numbers decreasing lies in their suffering higher mortality rates due to living in remote locations rather than in cities and towns founded by the Spanish colonists or in being at war with them. For the same reasons, the number of Indigenous Mexicans presents the greatest variation range between publications, as in some cases their numbers in a given location were estimated rather than counted, leading to possible overestimations in some provinces and possible underestimations in others.

Intendecy or territory	European population (%)	Indigenous population (%)	Mestizo population (%)
México (only the State of Mexico and Mexico City)	16.9%	66.1%	16.7%
Puebla	10.1%	74.3%	15.3%
Oaxaca	06.3%	88.2%	05.2%
Guanajuato	25.8%	44.0%	29.9%
San Luis Potosí	13.0%	51.2%	35.7%
Zacatecas	15.8%	29.0%	55.1%
Durango	20.2%	36.0%	43.5%
Sonora	28.5%	44.9%	26.4%
Yucatán	14.8%	72.6%	12.3%
Guadalajara	31.7%	33.3%	34.7%
Veracruz	10.4%	74.0%	15.2%
Valladolid	27.6%	42.5%	29.6%
Nuevo México	~	30.8%	69.0%
Vieja California	~	51.7%	47.9%
Nueva California	~	89.9%	09.8%
Coahuila	30.9%	28.9%	40.0%
Nuevo León	62.6%	05.5%	31.6%
Nuevo Santander	25.8%	23.3%	50.8%
Texas	39.7%	27.3%	32.4%
Tlaxcala	13.6%	72.4%	13.8%

~Europeans are included within the Mestizo category.

Regardless of the possible inaccuracies related to the counting of Indigenous peoples living outside of the colonized areas, the effort that New Spain's authorities put into considering them as subjects is worth mentioning, as censuses made by other colonial or post-colonial countries did not consider American Indians to be citizens or subjects; for example, the censuses made by the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata would only count the inhabitants of the colonized settlements. Another example is the censuses made by the United States, which did not include Indigenous peoples living among the general population until 1860, and indigenous peoples as a whole until 1900.

1921 census

Eulalio Gutiérrez (1881–1939), flanked by Francisco "Pancho" Villa (1878–1923) and Emiliano Zapata (1879–1919). Gutiérrez was appointed provisional President of Mexico by the Convention of Aguascalientes, a move that Venustiano Carranza (1859–1920) found intolerable. In the ensuing war, Obregón fought for Carranza against the convention.

Made right after the consummation of the Mexican revolution, the social context in which this census was conducted makes it particularly unique, as the government of the time was in the process of rebuilding the country and was looking to unite all Mexicans in a single national identity. The 1921 census' final results in regards to race, which assert that 59.3% of the Mexican population self-identified as Mestizo, 29.1% as Indigenous, and only 9.8% as White, were then essential in cementing the mestizaje ideology (which asserts that the Mexican population as a whole is product of the admixture of all races), which shaped Mexican identity and culture through the 20th century and remains prominent nowadays, with extraofficial international publications such as The World Factbook using the 1921 census as a reference to estimate Mexico's racial composition up to this day.

Nonetheless, in recent times, the census' results have been subjected to scrutiny by historians, academics and social activists alike, who assert that such drastic alterations on demographic trends with respect to the 1793 census are impossible and cite, among other statistics, the relatively low frequency of marriages between people of different continental ancestries in colonial and early independent Mexico. It is claimed that the mestizaje process sponsored by the state was more "cultural than biological", which resulted in the numbers of the Mestizo Mexican group being inflated at the expense of the identity of other races. Controversies aside, this census constituted the last time the Mexican Government conducted a comprehensive racial census with the breakdown by states being the following (foreigners and people who answered "other" not included):

Federative Units	Mestizo Population (%)	Amerindian Population (%)	White Population (%)
Aguascalientes	66.12%	16.70%	16.77%
Baja California (Distrito Norte)	72.50%	07.72%	00.35%
Baja California (Distrito Sur)	59.61%	06.06%	33.40%
Campeche	41.45%	43.41%	14.17%
Coahuila	77.88%	11.38%	10.13%
Colima	68.54%	26.00%	04.50%
Chiapas	36.27%	47.64%	11.82%
Chihuahua	50.09%	12.76%	36.33%
Durango	89.85%	09.99%	00.01%
Guanajuato	96.33%	02.96%	00.54%
Guerrero	54.05%	43.84%	02.07%
Hidalgo	51.47%	39.49%	08.83%
Jalisco	75.83%	16.76%	07.31%
Mexico City	54.78%	18.75%	22.79%
State of Mexico	47.71%	42.13%	10.02%
Michoacán	70.95%	21.04%	06.94%
Morelos	61.24%	34.93%	03.59%
Nayarit	73.45%	20.38%	05.83%
Nuevo León	75.47%	05.14%	19.23%
Oaxaca	28.15%	69.17%	01.43%
Puebla	39.34%	54.73%	05.66%
Querétaro	80.15%	19.40%	00.30%
Quintana Roo	42.35%	20.59%	15.16%
San Luis Potosí	61.88%	30.60%	05.41%
Sinaloa	98.30%	00.93%	00.19%
Sonora	41.04%	14.00%	42.54%
Tabasco	53.67%	18.50%	27.56%
Tamaulipas	69.77%	13.89%	13.62%
Tlaxcala	42.44%	54.70%	02.53%
Veracruz	50.09%	36.60%	10.28%
Yucatán	33.83%	43.31%	21.85%
Zacatecas	86.10%	08.54%	05.26%

When the 1921 census' results are compared with the results of Mexico's recent censuses as well as with modern genetic research, there is high consistency with respect to the distribution of Indigenous Mexicans across the country, with states located in south and south-eastern Mexico having both the highest percentages of population who self-identify as Indigenous and the highest percentages of Amerindian genetic ancestry. However, this is not the case when it comes to European Mexicans, as there are instances in which states that have been shown through scientific research to have a considerably high European ancestry are reported to have very small white populations in the 1921 census, with the most extreme case being that of the state of Durango, where the aforementioned census asserts that only 0.01% of the state's population (33 persons) self-identified as "white" while modern scientific research shows that the population of Durango has similar genetic frequencies to those found on European peoples (with the state's Indigenous population showing almost no foreign admixture either). Various authors theorize that the reason for these inconsistencies may lie in the Mestizo identity promoted by the Mexican government, which reportedly led to people who are not biologically Mestizos to be classified as such.

The present day

Ilse Salas has contributed significantly to representing contemporary Mexican society through film like "Las niñas bien" (The Good Girls) and Güeros

Since the end of the Mexican Revolution, the official identity promoted by the government for non-indigenous Mexicans has been the Mestizo one (a mix of European and indigenous culture and heritage). Established with the original intent of eliminating divisions and creating a unified identity that would allow Mexico to modernize and integrate with the international community, this policy has not been able to achieve its goal. It is speculated that this is due to the identity's own internal contradictions, as it includes in the same theoretical race people who, in daily interactions, do not consider each other to be of the same race and have little in common biologically, with some of them being entirely Indigenous, others entirely European, and including also Africans and Asians. Today, there is no definitive census that quantifies Mexico's white population, with estimates from the Mexican government raging from 27% to 47%, with this figure being based on phenotypical traits instead of self-identification of ancestry. The lack of a clear dividing line between white and mixed race Mexicans has made the concept of race relatively fluid, with descent being more of a determining factor than biological traits.

Generally speaking ethnic relations can be arranged on an axis between the two extremes of European and Amerindian cultural heritage, this is a remnant of the Spanish caste system which categorized individuals according to their perceived level of biological mixture between the two groups. Additionally the presence of considerable portions of the population with African heritage further complicates the situation. In practice the classificatory system is no longer biologically based, but rather mixes socio-cultural traits with phenotypical traits, and classification is largely fluid, allowing individuals to move between categories and define their ethnic and racial identities situationally. Even though there is a large variation in phenotypes among Mexicans, European looks are still strongly preferred in Mexican society, with lighter skin receiving more positive attention, as it is associated with higher social class, power, money, and modernity. In contrast, Indigenous ancestry is often associated with having an inferior social class, as well as lower levels of education. These distinctions are strongest in Mexico City, where the most powerful of the country's elite are located.

Luis Miguel, always referred to as The Sun of Mexico.

Despite Mexico's government not using racial terms related to European or white people officially for almost a century (resuming using such terms after 2010), the concepts of "white people" (known as güeros or blancos in Mexican Spanish) and of "being white" did not disappear and are still present in everyday Mexican culture: different idioms of race are used in Mexico's society that serve as mediating terms between racial groups. It is not strange to see street vendors calling a potential costumer Güero or güerito, sometimes even when the person is not light-skinned. In this instance it is used to initiate a kind of familiarity, but in cases where social/racial tensions are relatively high, it can have the opposite effect. However contemporary sociologists and historians agree that, given that the concept of "race" has a psychological foundation rather than a biological one and to society's eyes a Mestizo with a high percentage of European ancestry is considered "white" and a Mestizo with a high percentage of Indigenous ancestry is considered "Indian", a person who identifies with a given ethnic group should be allowed to, even if biologically that person does not completely belong to that group.

Languages

Main article: Languages of Mexico

Languages in Mexico (by percentage):

  Spanish (92.7%)

  Spanish and indigenous languages (5.7%)

  indigenous (0.8%)

  unspecified (0.8%)

Spanish is the de facto official language in Mexico, being spoken by 98.3% of the population. Mexican Spanish is spoken in a variety of dialects, accents and variations in different regions across the country. Some indigenous languages are still being spoken by around 5% of Mexicans according to the latest census, in 2003 the General Law of Linguistic Rights of the Indigenous Peoples recognized 68 indigenous languages as "national languages", with the "same validity" in all territories and contexts where they are spoken. The indigenous language with the greatest number of speakers is Nahuatl (1,586,884 speakers in 2010 or 1.5% of the nation's population), followed by Yucatec Maya (796,405 speakers in 2010 0.8%) spoken Yucatán Peninsula, Mixtecas languages (494,454), Tzeltal (474,298), Zapotecas languages (460,683), Tzotzil (429,168), Otomí (288,052), Totonaca (250,252) Mazateco (230,124), Chol (222,051) and 1,462,857 speakers of other languages. After half a century of rural-to-urban migration, in Mexico City and other major cities large districts and sections use both written and spoken Amerindian languages. Approximately 7,364,645 Mexicans (6.1% of the population) speak an indigenous language according to the 2020 Mexican Census.

During the first half of the 20th century the government promoted a policy of castellanización, that is, promoting the use of Spanish as a way to integrate indigenous peoples into Mexican society. Later, this policy changed, and since the 1980s the government has sponsored bilingual and intercultural education in all indigenous communities. This policy has mainly been successful in large communities with a significant number of speakers. While some languages, with less than 1,000 speakers, are still facing extinction.

The second most spoken language in Mexico, however, is English. It is used extensively at border areas, tourist centers and large metropolitan areas, a phenomenon arguably caused by the economic integration of North American under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the immigration phenomenon and the return of workers and their families from the United States. In border cities, American TV and radio waves in English (and Spanish) are received as much Spanish-speaking radio and TV stations from Mexico on the US side of the border, thus a bilingual cross-cultural exchange is at work. Among the languages brought to the country by immigrants are the Venetian of Chipilo, and Mennonite Low German spoken in Durango and Chihuahua.

Mexican nationality and citizenship

Mexican passport

Main article: Mexican nationality law

The Constitution of Mexico grants Mexican nationality based on birth and naturalization. Mexican laws regarding nationality by birth are very open. Mexican nationality by birth is granted to:

• all those individuals born in Mexican territory,
• all those individuals born outside Mexico, whose father or mother is Mexican by birth,
• all those individuals born outside Mexico, whose father or mother is Mexican by naturalization,
• all those individuals born aboard Mexican aircraft or sea vessels, whether warships or commercial vessels.

Mexican nationality by naturalization is granted to:

• foreign citizens granted Mexican nationality by the Secretariat of Government (Ministry of the Interior);
• foreign citizens married to a Mexican national, whether by birth or naturalization.

Religion

Main article: Religion in Mexico

Religion in Mexico (by percentage):

  Catholic (82.7%)

  Evangelical Churches (5%)

  Pentecostal (1.6%)

  Jehovah's Witnesses (1.4%)

  other (1.9%)

  none (4.7%)

  unspecified (2.7%)

The Mexican population is predominantly Catholic (78% of the population aged five and older, according to the 2020 census), although the percentage representing those who attend church on a weekly basis is lower (46%). About 7.6% of the population was classified as Protestant or Evangelical, 2.5% were classified as "Non-Evangelical Biblical" (a classification that groups Adventists, Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses), 0.05% as practicing Jews, and 4.6% without a religion. The largest group of Protestants are Pentecostals and Charismatics (classified as Neo-Pentecostals).

Church of Archangel Michael — from the town of Comala, in the state of Colima.

The states with the highest percentage of professing Catholics are central states, namely Guanajuato (96.4%), Aguascalientes (95.6%) and Jalisco (95.4%), whereas southeastern states have the lowest percentage of Catholics, namely Chiapas (63.8%), Tabasco (70.4%) and Campeche (71.3%). The percentage of professing Catholics has been on the decrease over the last four decades, from over 98% in 1950 to 78% in 2020.

The average annual growth of Catholic believers from 1990 to 2000 was 1.7% whereas that of non-Catholics was 3.7%. Given that the average annual population increase over the same time period was 1.8%, the percentage of Catholics in relation to the total population continues to be in overall decline.

Since 1857 with the La Reforma laws, the Mexican Constitution drastically separates Church and State, unlike some other countries in Latin America or Ibero-America. The State does not support or provide any economic resource to the Church (as is the case in Spain and Argentina), and the Church cannot participate in public education (no public school can be operated by a Catholic order, although they can participate in private education). Moreover, the government nationalized all the Church's properties (some of which were given back in the 1990s), and priests lost the right to vote or to be voted for (although in the 1990s they regained the right to vote).

See also

• List of municipalities in Mexico by population
• Metropolitan areas of Mexico
• List of Mexican states by population
• List of Mexican states by fertility rate
• Economy of Mexico
• Poverty in Mexico
• Romani Mexicans

Further reading

• Merrill, Tim and Ramón Miró. Mexico: a country study (Library of Congress. Federal Research Division, 1996) US government document; not copyright online free

External links

• UN: Fertility in Mexico: Trends and Forecasts Archived July 9, 2017, at the Wayback Machine
• (in Spanish) Mexico population bureau CONAPO Archived December 27, 2015, at the Wayback Machine
• (in Spanish) Institute of Statistics, Geography and Informatics, INEGI
• Map of Fecundity in Mexico Archived March 6, 2019, at the Wayback Machine