Indigenous & Afro-descendant people in Mexico

Number of indigenous and Afro-descendant population and households in Mexico in 2020

Characteristic	Population*	Households**
Speak an indigenous language	7.36	2.86
Self-perceive as Afro-descendant or Afro-Mexican	2.58	0.98

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Release date

January 2021

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Region

Mexico

Survey time period

March 2 to 27, 2020

Supplementary notes

* For speakers of an indigenous language, it only includes the population aged three or older.
** An indigenous or Afro-descendant household is defined as any household where the reference person, his or her spouse, or any of their ancestors declared speaking an indigenous language or perceiving themselves as Afro-Mexican or Afro-descendant.

According to INEGI, Afro-Mexicans or Afro-descendants are descendants of people from the African continent who arrived in Mexico during the colonial period, both in forced or free conditions to work in haciendas, sugar mills, mines, manufacturing, workshops, and in household services such as cooks, wet nurses or midwives, among other activities. It also includes people of African origin who arrived in Mexico in post-colonial times and recent years.

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In 2020, roughly 7.4 million inhabitants aged three or older spoke an indigenous language in Mexico. In the case of Afro-descendants or Afro-Mexicans, a total of 2.6 million people defined themselves as such.

Indigenous families in Mexico

Mexico is one of the countries with the largest share of indigenous language speakers in Latin America. The number of indigenous households stood at 2.9 million in 2020. This figure includes all family units where at least one member or their ancestors declared speaking an indigenous language. Native ethnicities in Mexico generally endure higher and more severe poverty levels. Indigenous people are also in a more vulnerable socio-economic situation. For instance, more than 30 percent of the indigenous population in Mexico lagged in education, almost double the share of non-indigenous population.

Mexico's Afro-descendants

Thanks to its millennia-long indigenous ancestry, Mexico is a multiethnic country that amasses one of the richest cultural heritages in the world. During colonial times, millions of slaves from the African continent were brought to Mexican territory. Their contribution to today's Mexican identity is sometimes overlooked. In 2020, around one million households in the country had at least one member who self-perceived as an Afro-descendant, or had ancestors with this ethnicity. Guerrero and Oaxaca are nowadays the states with the largest share of Afro-Mexicans.