Demographics of Mexico
Encyclopedia
Demography of Mexico

>
Population 112,336,538
Male population 54,855,231
Female population 57,481,307
Population growth
Population growth
Population growth is the change in a population over time, and can be quantified as the change in the number of individuals of any species in a population using "per unit time" for measurement....

1.82%
Birth rate
Birth rate
Crude birth rate is the nativity or childbirths per 1,000 people per year . Another word used interchangeably with "birth rate" is "natality". When the crude birth rate is subtracted from the crude death rate, it reveals the rate of natural increase...

19/1,000
Mortality rate
Mortality rate
Mortality rate is a measure of the number of deaths in a population, scaled to the size of that population, per unit time...

4.9/1,000
Infant mortality rate 18.1/1,000
Life expectancy
Life expectancy
Life expectancy is the expected number of years of life remaining at a given age. It is denoted by ex, which means the average number of subsequent years of life for someone now aged x, according to a particular mortality experience...

75.6 years
Population speaking indigenous languages 6,011,202
Nationality Mexican
Demographic bureaus INEGI, CONAPO and CDI
National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples
The National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples is a decentralized agency of the Mexican Federal Public Administration. It was founded in 2003 as a replacement for the National Indigenist Institute . It has its headquarters in Mexico City and, since 15 December 2006, has been...



With a population 112,336,538 in 2010, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

is the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world, the second-most populous country in Latin America after Portuguese-speaking Brazil, and the second in North America, after the United States. Throughout most of the twentieth century Mexico's population was characterized by rapid growth. Even though this tendency has been reverted and average annual population growth over the last five years was less than 1%, the demographic transition is still in progress, and Mexico still has a large cohort
Cohort (statistics)
In statistics and demography, a cohort is a group of subjects who have shared a particular time together during a particular time span . Cohorts may be tracked over extended periods in a cohort study. The cohort can be modified by censoring, i.e...

 of youths. The most populous city in the country is the capital city, Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...

, with a population of 8.7 million (2005), and its metropolitan area
Metropolitan area
The term metropolitan area refers to a region consisting of a densely populated urban core and its less-populated surrounding territories, sharing industry, infrastructure, and housing. A metropolitan area usually encompasses multiple jurisdictions and municipalities: neighborhoods, townships,...

 is also the most populous in the country with 19.2 million (2005). Approximately 50% of the population lives in one of the 55 large metropolitan areas in the country.

The Census Bureau in Mexico is the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI). The National Population Council (CONAPO), is an institution under the Secretary of the Interior
Secretary of the Interior (Mexico)
The Mexican Secretary of the Interior is the head of the Secretariat of the Interior, concerned with the country's internal affairs, the presentation of the president's bills to Congress, their publication and certain issues of national security. The country's main intelligence agency, CISEN,...

 in charge of the analysis and research of population dynamics. The National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples
National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples
The National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples is a decentralized agency of the Mexican Federal Public Administration. It was founded in 2003 as a replacement for the National Indigenist Institute . It has its headquarters in Mexico City and, since 15 December 2006, has been...

 (CDI), amongst other things, undertakes research and analysis of the sociodemographic and linguistic indicators of the indigenous peoples in Mexico.

Demographic dynamics

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 Mexican government invested in efficient social programs that reduced infant mortality
Infant mortality
Infant mortality is defined as the number of infant deaths per 1000 live births. Traditionally, the most common cause worldwide was dehydration from diarrhea. However, the spreading information about Oral Re-hydration Solution to mothers around the world has decreased the rate of children dying...

 rate and increased life expectancy
Life expectancy
Life expectancy is the expected number of years of life remaining at a given age. It is denoted by ex, which means the average number of subsequent years of life for someone now aged x, according to a particular mortality experience...

 which jointly led to an intense demographic increase between 1930 and 1980. 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
Demographic transition
The demographic transition model is the transition from high birth and death rates to low birth and death rates as a country develops from a pre-industrial to an industrialized economic system. The theory is based on an interpretation of demographic history developed in 1929 by the American...

, close to 50% of the population in 2009 was 25 and younger. Fertility rates have also decreased from 5.7 children per woman in 1976 to 2.2 in 2006.
The average annual population growth rate of the capital, the Federal District
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...

, was the first in the country at 0.2%. The state with the lowest population growth rate over the same period was Michoacán
Michoacán
Michoacán officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Michoacán de Ocampo is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 113 municipalities and its capital city is Morelia...

 (-0.1%), whereas the states with the highest population growth rates were Quintana Roo
Quintana Roo
Quintana Roo officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Quintana Roo is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 10 municipalities and its capital city is Chetumal....

 (4.7%) and Baja California Sur
Baja California Sur
Baja California Sur , is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. Before becoming a state on October 8, 1974, the area was known as the South Territory of Baja California. It has an area of , or 3.57% of the land mass of Mexico and comprises...

 (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
Net migration rate
Net migration rate is the difference of immigrants and emigrants of an area in a period of time, divided per 1,000 inhabitants...

 of the Federal District 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
Baja California
Baja California officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is both the northernmost and westernmost state of Mexico. Before becoming a state in 1953, the area was known as the North...

 (1.8) and Baja California Sur (1.6). While the national annual growth rate is still positive (1.0%), the national net migration rate is negative (-4.75/1000 inhabitants), given the intense flow of immigrants to the United States; an estimated 5.3 million undocumented Mexicans lived in the United States in 2004 and 18.2 million American citizens in the 2000 Census declared having Mexican ancestry. Mexico itself constitutes the second country of total number of immigrants to the United States from 1830 to 2000, after Germany.

The Mexican government projects that the Mexican population will grow to about 123 million by 2042 and then start declining slowly. Assumptions include fertility stabilizing at 1.85 children per woman and continued high net emigration (gently decreasing from 583,000 in 2005 to 393,000 in 2050).

The states and the Federal District that conform the Mexican federation are collectively called "federal entities". The five most populous federal entities in 2005 were the State of Mexico (14.4 million), the Federal District (8.7 million), Veracruz (7.1 million), Jalisco
Jalisco
Jalisco officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Jalisco is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is located in Western Mexico and divided in 125 municipalities and its capital city is Guadalajara.It is one of the more important states...

 (6.7 million) and Puebla
Puebla
Puebla officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Puebla is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 217 municipalities and its capital city is Puebla....

 (5.4 million) which collectively contain 40.7% of the national population. Mexico City, being coextensive with the Federal District, is the most populous city in the country, whereas Greater Mexico City
Greater Mexico City
Greater Mexico City refers to the conurbation around Mexico City, officially called Mexico City Metropolitan Area , constituted by the Federal District—itself composed of 16 boroughs—and 41 adjacent municipalities of the states of Mexico and Hidalgo...

, that includes the adjacent municipalities that conform a metropolitan area
Metropolitan area
The term metropolitan area refers to a region consisting of a densely populated urban core and its less-populated surrounding territories, sharing industry, infrastructure, and housing. A metropolitan area usually encompasses multiple jurisdictions and municipalities: neighborhoods, townships,...

, is estimated to be the second most popular in the world, by the UN Urbanization Report.

Intense population growth in the Northern states, especially in the US-Mexican border, changed the country's demographic profile in the second half of the 20th century since the 1967 US-Mexico maquiladora agreement through which all products manufactured in the border cities could be imported duty-free to the US. Since NAFTA, however, in which all products are allowed to be imported duty free regardless of their origin within Mexico, non-border maquiladora share of exports has increased while that of border cities has decreased, allowing for the growth of middle-size cities in different regions in Mexico. This has also led to decentralization and growth of other metropolitan areas that conform regional centers of economic growth, like Monterrey, Guadalajara, Puebla, San Luis Potosí, León and Torreón.

Immigration to Mexico

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 via the United States settled in northern Mexico, whereas Koreans settled in central Mexico.

During the 1970s and 1980s Mexico opened its doors to immigrants from Latin America, mainly political refugees from Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

, Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

, Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

, Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

, Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...

 and Central America
Central America
Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...

. The PRI
Institutional Revolutionary Party
The Institutional Revolutionary Party is a Mexican political party that held power in the country—under a succession of names—for more than 70 years. The PRI is a member of the Socialist International, as is the rival Party of the Democratic Revolution , making Mexico one of the few...

 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. 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.

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
North American Free Trade Agreement
The North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA is an agreement signed by the governments of Canada, Mexico, and the United States, creating a trilateral trade bloc in North America. The agreement came into force on January 1, 1994. It superseded the Canada – United States 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
San Miguel de Allende
San Miguel de Allende is a city and municipality located in the far eastern part of the state of Guanajuato in central Mexico. It is 274 km from Mexico City and 97 km from the state capital of Guanajuato...

 and its environs, 200,000 Americans have their residence.

Discrepancies between the figures of official legal aliens and all foreign-born residents is quite large. The official figure for foreign-born residents in Mexico in 2000 was 493,000, with a majority (86.9%) of these born in the United States (except Chiapas
Chiapas
Chiapas officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas is one of the 31 states that, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 118 municipalities and its capital city is Tuxtla Gutierrez. Other important cites in Chiapas include San Cristóbal de las...

, 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 (the Federal District; 11.4%), Jalisco (9.9%), Chihuahua (9%) and Tamaulipas (7.3%).

Emigration from Mexico

The national net migration rate
Net migration rate
Net migration rate is the difference of immigrants and emigrants of an area in a period of time, divided per 1,000 inhabitants...

 in Mexico is negative, estimated at -4.32 migrant per 1,000 population. The great majority of Mexican emigrants have moved to the United States of America. This migration phenomenon is not new, but has been a defining feature in the relationship of both countries for most of the twentieth century. Since 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 program as a result of civil rights groups. In spite of that, emigration of Mexicans continued throughout the rest of the century at varying degrees, but it grew significantly during the 1990s and has continued to do so in the first years of the 2000s. In fact, it has been estimated that 37% of all Mexican immigrants to the United States in the 20th century arrived during the 1990s. In 2000 approximately 20 million American residents identified themselves as either Mexican, Mexican-Americans or of Mexican origin, making it the sixth most cited ancestry of all US residents.

INEGI estimated in 2000 that about 8 million Mexican-born individuals live in the United States of America; that is 8.7% of total Mexican population. In that same year, the states with the greatest number emigrants to the United States were Jalisco
Jalisco
Jalisco officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Jalisco is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is located in Western Mexico and divided in 125 municipalities and its capital city is Guadalajara.It is one of the more important states...

 (170,793), Michoacán
Michoacán
Michoacán officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Michoacán de Ocampo is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 113 municipalities and its capital city is Morelia...

 (165,502) and Guanajuato
Guanajuato
Guanajuato officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Guanajuato is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 46 municipalities and its capital city is Guanajuato....

 (163,338), with the total number of emigrants being 1,569,157 the great majority of which were men. Approximately 30% of emigrants come from rural communities. That same year, 260,650 emigrants returned to Mexico.

Growing interdependence of both countries, the emigration of Mexicans to the United States has slowed. While some argue that this is due to economic disparities between rural and urban, rich and poor populations, others suggest that the migration phenomenon is simply moving in inertia, as Mexican residents in the United States are now bringing their families who had stayed in Mexico. Most Mexican families will return to Mexico that have been in the United States. One study showed they desire to live in their homeland and culture and it is the goal of Mexicans to return to the mother land of their fathers, as they refer to Mexico.

After the Mexican American community, it is thought that the Mexican British community is the second largest Mexican diaspora with between 80,000 and 100,000 members, Mexican Canadian
Mexican Canadian
Mexican Canadians are Canadians of Mexican ancestry. Per the latest Statistics Canada population estimate , 61,505 Canadians indicated that they were of full or partial Mexican ancestry...

s number around 40,000, Mexican in Spain
Demographics of Spain
This article is about the demographic features of the population of Spain, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population....

 number a similar amount and an unknown, but thought to be large number of Mexicans live in the Philippines
Mexican settlement in the Philippines
Mexican Filipinos are a multilingual Filipino ethnic group composed of Philippine citizens with Mexican ancestry. Mexican Filipinos are ethnically diverse. They can be White Mexicans, Amerindian Mexicans, or members of any other group...

. Mexicans live throughout Latin America, but also in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and United Arab Emirates
United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates, abbreviated as the UAE, or shortened to "the Emirates", is a state situated in the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia on the Persian Gulf, bordering Oman, and Saudi Arabia, and sharing sea borders with Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Iran.The UAE is a...

.
Emigration list from Mexico
Mexican residents in the world by countries
Country Population Position Continent
9,900,000 1 North America
36,225 2 North America
14,399 3 Europe
11,481 4 North America
9,377 5 South America
8,848 6 Europe
6,750 7 South America
5,125 8 Europe
4,601 9 Europe
4,252 10 Asia
3,485 11 Europe
3,075 12 South America
2,349 13 North America
2,327 14 North America
2,299 15 North America
2,286 16 South America
1,977 17 Europe
1,874 18 South America
1,778 19 South America
1,412 20 Asia
Also there are temporal residents by 1–3 years

Settlements, cities and municipalities

Most populated municipalities
}
}}
|-
! style="background:#e8e8e8;" | Municipality
! style="background:#e8e8e8;" | Pop. (2005)
|-
| style="background:#efefef;" | Ecatepec de Morelos
Ecatepec de Morelos
Ecatepec City, once officially San Cristóbal Ecatepec de Morelos, is a city in the State of México and the seat of Ecatepec de Morelos Municipality; however, both the city and the municipality are often known simply as "Ecatepec". The name "Ecatepec" is derived from Nahuatl, and means "windy hill"....


| style="background:#efefef;" align=right | 1,688,258
|-
| Guadalajara
Guadalajara, Jalisco
Guadalajara is the capital of the Mexican state of Jalisco, and the seat of the municipality of Guadalajara. The city is located in the central region of Jalisco in the western-pacific area of Mexico. With a population of 1,564,514 it is Mexico's second most populous municipality...


| align=right | 1,600,940
|-
| style="background:#efefef;" | Puebla
Puebla, Puebla
The city and municipality of Puebla is the capital of the state of Puebla, and one of the five most important colonial cities in Mexico. Being a planned city, it is located to the east of Mexico City and west of Mexico's main port, Veracruz, on the main route between the two.The city was founded...


| style="background:#efefef;" align=right | 1,485,941
|-
| Tijuana
Tijuana
Tijuana is the largest city on the Baja California Peninsula and center of the Tijuana metropolitan area, part of the international San Diego–Tijuana metropolitan area. An industrial and financial center of Mexico, Tijuana exerts a strong influence on economics, education, culture, art, and politics...


| align=right |1,410,700
|-
| style="background:#efefef;" | León
León, Guanajuato
The city of León, formally León de los Aldama is the sixth most populous city in Mexico and the first in the state of Guanajuato. It is also the seat of the municipality of León...


| style="background:#efefef;" align=right | 1.325.210
|-
| Juárez
Ciudad Juárez
Ciudad Juárez , officially known today as Heroica Ciudad Juárez, but abbreviated Juárez and formerly known as El Paso del Norte, is a city and seat of the municipality of Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Juárez's estimated population is 1.5 million people. The city lies on the Rio Grande...


| align=right | 1,313,338
|-
| align="center" bgcolor="lightblue" colspan="2"|
|}
In 2005 Mexico had 187,938 localidades (lit. "localities" or "settlements"), which are census-designated places, which could be defined as a small town, a large city, or simply as a single unit housing in a rural area whether situated remotely or even close to an urban area. A city is defined to be a settlement with more than 2,500 inhabitants. In 2005 there were 2,640 cities with a population between 2,500 and 15,000 inhabitants, 427 with a population between 15,000 and 100,000 inhabitants, 112 with a population between 100,000 and one million, and 11 with a population of more than one million. All cities are considered "urban areas" and represent 76.5% of total population. Settlements with less than 2,500 inhabitants are considered "rural communities" (in fact, more than 80,000 of those settlements have only one or two housing units). Rural population in Mexico is 22.2% of total population.

Municipalities
Municipalities of Mexico
Municipalities are the second-level administrative division in Mexico . There are 2,438 municipalities in Mexico, making the average municipality population 45,616...

 (municipios in Spanish) and boroughs
Boroughs of the Mexican Federal District
Mexico City — politically and administratively constituted as the Federal District — is divided into sixteen boroughs for administrative purposes. They constitute second-level administrative divisions, on par with the municipalities of Mexico. However, unlike municipalities, they do not have...

 (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 2,438 municipalities and Mexico and 16 semi-autonomous boroughs (all within the Federal District). 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

Metropolitan areas of Mexico
}
}}
|-
! style="background:#e8e8e8;" | Metro area
! style="background:#e8e8e8;" | Pop. (2005)
|-
| style="background:#efefef;" | Greater Mexico City
Greater Mexico City
Greater Mexico City refers to the conurbation around Mexico City, officially called Mexico City Metropolitan Area , constituted by the Federal District—itself composed of 16 boroughs—and 41 adjacent municipalities of the states of Mexico and Hidalgo...


| style="background:#efefef;" align=right | 19.231.829
|-
| Greater Guadalajara
Guadalajara Metropolitan Area
The Guadalajara Metropolitan Area is the most populous metropolitan area of the Mexican state of Jalisco and the second largest in the country after Greater Mexico City...


| align=right | 4.095.853
|-
| style="background:#efefef;" | Greater Monterrey
Monterrey Metropolitan area
The Monterrey metropolitan area refers to the surrounding urban agglomeration of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon. Officially called Area Metropolitana de la Ciudad de Monterrey or AMM, the metropolitan area is the 3rd-largest such area in Mexico....


| style="background:#efefef;" align=right | 3.664.331
|-
| Greater Puebla
Metropolitan area of Puebla
The Metropolitan area of Puebla or Greater Puebla is the fourth largest agglomeration in Mexico with a population of 2.109 million. This agglomeration includes 10 municipalities of the state of Puebla, and 13 municipalities of the state of Tlaxcala...


| align=right | 2.109.049
|-
| style="background:#efefef;" | Greater Toluca
Greater Toluca
Greater Toluca or the Metropolitan Area of Toluca is the conurbation formed by Toluca, as the core city, and 12 adjacent municipalities of the state of Mexico, namely Almoloya de Juárez, Calimaya, Chapultepec, Lerma, Metepec, Mexicaltzingo, Ocoyoacac, Otzolotepec, San Mateo Atenco, Xonacatlán and...


| style="background:#efefef;" align=right | 1.610.786
|-
| Tijuana
Tijuana metropolitan area
The Tijuana metropolitan area, and in Spanish the Zona Metropolitana de Tijuana, is located on the Pacific Ocean in Mexico. According to the 2005 census, the Tijuana metropolitan area was the sixth-largest in Mexico, with a population of 1,483,992. The 2010 Census placed the Tijuana metropolitan...


| align=right | 1.410.700
|-
| style="background:#efefef;" | León
León, Guanajuato
The city of León, formally León de los Aldama is the sixth most populous city in Mexico and the first in the state of Guanajuato. It is also the seat of the municipality of León...


| style="background:#efefef;" align=right | 1.325.210
|-
| Ciudad Juárez
Ciudad Juárez
Ciudad Juárez , officially known today as Heroica Ciudad Juárez, but abbreviated Juárez and formerly known as El Paso del Norte, is a city and seat of the municipality of Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Juárez's estimated population is 1.5 million people. The city lies on the Rio Grande...


| align=right | 1.313.338
|-
| style="background:#efefef;" | Comarca Lagunera
Comarca Lagunera
The Comarca Lagunera is the 9th largest metropolitan area in Mexico, and is located between two states, Coahuila and Durango.-Geography:The Comarca Lagunera is formed by 15 municipios; 5 in Coahuila The Comarca Lagunera is the 9th largest metropolitan area in Mexico, and is located between two...


| style="background:#efefef;" align=right | 1.210.890
|-
|Greater San Luis Potosí
Greater San Luis Potosí
Greater San Luis Potosí is the urban conglomerated which results of the fusion of the cities of San Luis Potosí and Soledad with other communities around the zone...


| align=right | 1.075.000
|-
| align="center" bgcolor="lightblue" colspan="2"|
|}
A metropolitan area in Mexico is defined to be the 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:
  • the group of two ore 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 2004 there were 55 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
Greater Mexico City
Greater Mexico City refers to the conurbation around Mexico City, officially called Mexico City Metropolitan Area , constituted by the Federal District—itself composed of 16 boroughs—and 41 adjacent municipalities of the states of Mexico and Hidalgo...

, which in 2005 had a population of 19.23 million, or 19% of the nation's population. The next four largest metropolitan areas in Mexico are Greater Guadalajara
Guadalajara Metropolitan Area
The Guadalajara Metropolitan Area is the most populous metropolitan area of the Mexican state of Jalisco and the second largest in the country after Greater Mexico City...

 (4.1 million), Greater Monterrey
Monterrey Metropolitan area
The Monterrey metropolitan area refers to the surrounding urban agglomeration of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon. Officially called Area Metropolitana de la Ciudad de Monterrey or AMM, the metropolitan area is the 3rd-largest such area in Mexico....

 (3.7 million), Greater Puebla
Metropolitan area of Puebla
The Metropolitan area of Puebla or Greater Puebla is the fourth largest agglomeration in Mexico with a population of 2.109 million. This agglomeration includes 10 municipalities of the state of Puebla, and 13 municipalities of the state of Tlaxcala...

 (2.1 million) and Greater Toluca
Greater Toluca
Greater Toluca or the Metropolitan Area of Toluca is the conurbation formed by Toluca, as the core city, and 12 adjacent municipalities of the state of Mexico, namely Almoloya de Juárez, Calimaya, Chapultepec, Lerma, Metepec, Mexicaltzingo, Ocoyoacac, Otzolotepec, San Mateo Atenco, Xonacatlán and...

 (1.6 million), whose added population, along with Greater Mexico City, is equivalent to 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%).

Religion

Religion affiliation
}
}}
! style="background:#efefef;" align=center | Religion
! style="background:#efefef;" align=center | Pop. professing
|-
|Catholics
|align=right|74,612,373
|-
|Protestant and Evangelical

Historic [denominations]

Pentecostalism

Luz del Mundo

Others
|align=right|4,408,159

599,875

1,373,.383

69,254

2,365,647
|-
|Other Biblical

Adventism

Mormonism

Jehovah's Witnesses
|align=right|2,704,917

488,945

1,158,236

1,057,736
|-
|Judaism
|align=right|45,260
|-
|No Religion
|align=right|2,982,929
|-
|Not specified
|align=right|732,630
|-
| align="center" bgcolor="lightblue" colspan="2"|
|}
The Mexican population is predominantly Catholic (in the 2010 census, 83.9% of the population 5 and older identified themselves as Catholic), even though a much smaller percent (46%) attends church on a weekly basis. About 5.2% of the population was classified as Protestant
Protestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...

 or Evangelic, 2.1% were classified as "Non-Evangelical Biblical" (a classification that groups Adventist
Adventist
Adventism is a Christian movement which began in the 19th century, in the context of the Second Great Awakening revival in the United States. The name refers to belief in the imminent Second Coming of Jesus Christ. It was started by William Miller, whose followers became known as Millerites...

s, Mormon
Mormon
The term Mormon most commonly denotes an adherent, practitioner, follower, or constituent of Mormonism, which is the largest branch of the Latter Day Saint movement in restorationist Christianity...

s and Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The religion reports worldwide membership of over 7 million adherents involved in evangelism, convention attendance of over 12 million, and annual...

), 0.05% as practicing Jews
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

, and 2.5% without a religion. The largest group of Protestants are Pentecostals
Pentecostalism
Pentecostalism is a diverse and complex movement within Christianity that places special emphasis on a direct personal experience of God through the baptism in the Holy Spirit, has an eschatological focus, and is an experiential religion. The term Pentecostal is derived from Pentecost, the Greek...

 and Charismatics
Charismatic movement
The term charismatic movement is used in varying senses to describe 20th century developments in various Christian denominations. It describes an ongoing international, cross-denominational/non-denominational Christian movement in which individual, historically mainstream congregations adopt...

 (classified as Neo-Pentecostals).

The states with the greatest percentage or professing Catholics are central states, namely Guanajuato
Guanajuato
Guanajuato officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Guanajuato is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 46 municipalities and its capital city is Guanajuato....

 (96.4%), Aguascalientes
Aguascalientes
Aguascalientes is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 11 municipalities and its capital city is Aguascalientes....

 (95.6%) and Jalisco
Jalisco
Jalisco officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Jalisco is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is located in Western Mexico and divided in 125 municipalities and its capital city is Guadalajara.It is one of the more important states...

 (95.4%), whereas southeastern states have the least percentage of Catholics, namely Chiapas
Chiapas
Chiapas officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas is one of the 31 states that, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 118 municipalities and its capital city is Tuxtla Gutierrez. Other important cites in Chiapas include San Cristóbal de las...

 (63.8%), Tabasco
Tabasco
Tabasco officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Tabasco is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 17 municipalities and its capital city is Villahermosa....

 (70.4%) and Campeche
Campeche
Campeche is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. Located in Southeast Mexico, it is bordered by the states of Yucatán to the north east, Quintana Roo to the east, and Tabasco to the south west...

 (71.3%). The percentage of professing Catholics has been decreasing over the last four decades, from over 98% in 1950 to 87.9% in 2000. Average annual growth of Catholic believers from 1990–2000 was 1.7% whereas that of Non-Catholics was 3.7%. Given that average annual population increase over the same time period was 1.8%, the percentage of Catholics with respect to total population is still decreasing.

Unlike some other countries in Latin America or Ibero-America
Ibero-America
Ibero-America is a term used since the second half of the 19th century to refer collectively to the countries in the Americas that were formerly colonies of Spain or Portugal. Spain and Portugal are themselves included in some definitions, such as that of the Ibero-American Summit and the...

, the 1857 Mexican Constitution drastically separated Church and State. The State does not support or provide any economic resource for 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, even though 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 (in the 1990s they were given back the right to vote).

Languages

The most important and de facto
De facto
De facto is a Latin expression that means "concerning fact." In law, it often means "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but not officially established." It is commonly used in contrast to de jure when referring to matters of law, governance, or...

official language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...

 in Mexico is Spanish. Mexican Spanish is spoken in a variety of dialects, accents and variations in different regions.

The Law of Linguistic Rights, published in 2001, declared the 62 indigenous languages spoken in Mexico 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
Nahuatl
Nahuatl is thought to mean "a good, clear sound" This language name has several spellings, among them náhuatl , Naoatl, Nauatl, Nahuatl, Nawatl. In a back formation from the name of the language, the ethnic group of Nahuatl speakers are called Nahua...

 (1.5% of the nation's population), followed by Yucatec Maya (0.8%) spoken Yucatán Peninsula
Yucatán Peninsula
The Yucatán Peninsula, in southeastern Mexico, separates the Caribbean Sea from the Gulf of Mexico, with the northern coastline on the Yucatán Channel...

. In Mexico City and other major cities after half a century of rural-to-urban migration, large districts and sections have Amerindian languages written and heard.

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 the Mexican society. Later, this policy changed, and since the 1980s the government sponsors bilingual and intercultural education in all indigenous communities. This policy has mainly been successful in large communities with a significant amount 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 used extensively at the 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
North American Free Trade Agreement
The North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA is an agreement signed by the governments of Canada, Mexico, and the United States, creating a trilateral trade bloc in North America. The agreement came into force on January 1, 1994. It superseded the Canada – United States Free Trade Agreement...

 (NAFTA) and the immigration phenomenon and the return of workers and their families form 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 by immigrants are the Venetian
Venetian language
Venetian or Venetan is a Romance language spoken as a native language by over two million people, mostly in the Veneto region of Italy, where of five million inhabitants almost all can understand it. It is sometimes spoken and often well understood outside Veneto, in Trentino, Friuli, Venezia...

 of Chipilo
Chipilo
Chipilo is a small city in the state of Puebla, Mexico. It is located twelve kilometers south of the state capital Puebla, Puebla, at a height of 2,150 meters above sea level. Its official name is Chipilo de Francisco Javier Mina...

, and Mennonite Low German spoken in Durango
Durango
Durango officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Durango is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is located in Northwest Mexico. With a population of 1,632,934, it has Mexico's second-lowest population density, after Baja...

 and Chihuahua. Other languages spoken in Mexico include French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

, Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

, Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

, Occitan, Catalan, Basque, Galician, Asturian, Chinese, Hebrew, Korean, Ladino, Plautdietsch, Armenian, Italian, etc. Even though some of these may have a greater number of speakers than the national languages, they are not recognized by the government.

Ethnic groups

Mexico is ethnically diverse. The second article of the Mexican Constitution
Constitution of Mexico
The Political Constitution of the United Mexican States is the current constitution of Mexico. It was drafted in Santiago de Querétaro, in the State of Querétaro, by a constitutional convention, during the Mexican Revolution. It was approved by the Constitutional Congress on February 5, 1917...

 defines the country to be a pluricultural nation - Indigenous, Mestizo, European - originally founded upon the indigenous peoples.

Mestizo

The large majority of Mexicans can be classified as "Mestizos", meaning in modern Mexican usage that they identify fully neither with any indigenous culture nor with a particular non-Mexican heritage, but rather identify as having cultural traits and heritage incorporating elements from indigenous and European 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. Mexican politicians and reformers such as José Vasconcelos
José Vasconcelos
José Vasconcelos Calderón was a Mexican writer, philosopher and politician. He is one of the most influential and controversial personalities in the development of modern Mexico. His philosophy of "indigenismo" affected all aspects of Mexican sociocultural, political, and economic...

 and Manuel Gamio
Manuel Gamio
Manuel Gamio was a Mexican anthropologist, archaeologist, sociologist, and a leader of the indigenismo movement. He is often considered as the father of modern anthropological studies in Mexico...

 were instrumental in building a Mexican national identity on the concept of mestizaje. Cultural policies in early post-revolutionary Mexico were paternalistic towards the indigenous people, with efforts designed to "help" indigenous peoples achieve the same level of progress as the rest of society, eventually assimilating indigenous peoples completely to Mestizo Mexican culture, working toward the goal of eventually solving the "Indian problem" by transforming indigenous communities into mestizo communities.

The term "Mestizo" is not in wide use in Mexican society today and has been dropped as a category in population censuses; it is, however, still used in social and cultural studies when referring to the non-indigenous part of the Mexican population. The word has somewhat pejorative connotations and most of the Mexican citizens who would be defined as mestizos in the sociological literature would probably self-identify primarily as Mexicans. In the Yucatán peninsula the word Mestizo is even used about Maya-speaking populations living in traditional communities, because during the caste war
Caste War of Yucatán
The Caste War of Yucatán began with the revolt of native Maya people of Yucatán, Mexico against the population of European descent, called Yucatecos, who held political and economic control of the region. A lengthy war ensued between the Yucateco forces in the north-west of the Yucatán and the...

 of the late 19th century those Maya who did not join the rebellion were classified as mestizos. In Chiapas the word "Ladino" is used instead of mestizo.

Indigenous peoples

Largest indigenous peoples
}
}}
! style="background:#efefef;" align=center | Group
! style="background:#efefef;" align=center | Number
|-
|Nahua peoples (Nawatlaka)
|align=right|2,445,969
|-
|Maya
Maya peoples
The Maya people constitute a diverse range of the Native American people of southern Mexico and northern Central America. The overarching term "Maya" is a collective designation to include the peoples of the region who share some degree of cultural and linguistic heritage; however, the term...

 (Maaya)
|align=right|1,475,575
|-
|Zapotec (Binizaa)
|align=right|777,253
|-
|Mixtec
Mixtec
The Mixtec are indigenous Mesoamerican peoples inhabiting the Mexican states of Oaxaca, Guerrero and Puebla in a region known as La Mixteca. The Mixtecan languages form an important branch of the Otomanguean language family....

 (Ñuu sávi)
|align=right|726,601
|-
|Otomí
Otomi people
The Otomi people . Smaller Otomi populations exist in the states of Puebla, Mexico, Tlaxcala, Michoacán and Guanajuato. The Otomi language belonging to the Oto-Pamean branch of the Oto-Manguean language family is spoken in many different varieties some of which are not mutually intelligible.One of...

 (Hñähñü)
|align=right|646,875
|-
|Totonac
Totonac
The Totonac people resided in the eastern coastal and mountainous regions of Mexico at the time of the Spanish arrival in 1519. Today they reside in the states of Veracruz, Puebla, and Hidalgo. They are one of the possible builders of the Pre-Columbian city of El Tajín, and further maintained...

 (Tachihuiin)
|align=right|411,266
|-
|colspan=2 style="background:#e9e9e9;" align=center|Source: CDI (2000) http://cdi.gob.mx/index.php?id_seccion=660
|-
|}
Prior to contact with Europeans the indigenous peoples of Mexico had not had any kind of shared identity. Indigenous identity was constructed by the dominant Euro-Mestizo majority and imposed upon the indigenous people as a negatively defined identity, characterized by the lack of assimilation into modern Mexico. Indian identity therefore became socially stigmatizing. Cultural policies in early post-revolutionary Mexico were paternalistic towards the indigenous people, with efforts designed to "help" indigenous peoples achieve the same level of progress as the rest of society, eventually assimilating indigenous peoples completely to Mestizo Mexican culture, working toward the goal of eventually solving the "indian problem" by transforming indigenous communities into mestizo communities .

The category of "indigena" (indigenous) can be defined narrowly according to linguistic criteria including only persons that speak one of Mexico's 62 indigenous languages
Languages of Mexico
The government of Mexico recognizes 68 distinct indigenous Amerindian languages as national languages in addition to Spanish. According to the Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples and National Institute of Indigenous Languages [INALI], while 10-14% of the population identifies as...

, this is the categorization used by the National Mexican Institute of Statistics. It can also be defined broadly to include all persons who selfidentify as having an indigenous cultural background, whether or not they speak the language of the indigenous group they identify with. This means that the percentage of the Mexican population defined as "indigenous" varies according to the definition applied, cultural activists have referred to the usage of the narrow definition of the term for census purposes as "statistical genocide".

The constitution not only recognizes the 62 indigenous peoples living in Mexican territory but also grants them autonomy and protects their culture and languages. This protection and autonomy is extended to those Amerindian ethnic groups which have migrated from the United States—like the Cherokee
Cherokee
The Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...

s and Kickapoos—and Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...

 during the 19th and 20th centuries. Municipalities in which indigenous peoples are located can keep their normative traditional systems in relation to the election of their municipal authorities. This system is known as Usos y Costumbres, roughly translated as "customs and traditions".

According to official statistics—as reported by the National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples
National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples
The National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples is a decentralized agency of the Mexican Federal Public Administration. It was founded in 2003 as a replacement for the National Indigenist Institute . It has its headquarters in Mexico City and, since 15 December 2006, has been...

 or CDI—Amerindians make up 10-14% of the country's population, even though only a little more than half of them (5.4% of total population) still speak an indigenous language and a tenth (1.2% of total population) do not speak Spanish. Official statistics of the CDI report that the states with the greatest percentage of Amerindian population or individuals of Amerindian origin are Yucatán
Yucatán
Yucatán officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Yucatán is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 106 municipalities and its capital city is Mérida....

 (59%), Oaxaca
Oaxaca
Oaxaca , , officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca is one of the 31 states which, along with the Federal District, comprise the 32 federative entities of Mexico. It is divided into 571 municipalities; of which 418 are governed by the system of customs and traditions...

 (48%), Quintana Roo
Quintana Roo
Quintana Roo officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Quintana Roo is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 10 municipalities and its capital city is Chetumal....

 (39%), Chiapas
Chiapas
Chiapas officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas is one of the 31 states that, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 118 municipalities and its capital city is Tuxtla Gutierrez. Other important cites in Chiapas include San Cristóbal de las...

 (28%), Campeche
Campeche
Campeche is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. Located in Southeast Mexico, it is bordered by the states of Yucatán to the north east, Quintana Roo to the east, and Tabasco to the south west...

 (27%), Hidalgo (24%), Puebla
Puebla
Puebla officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Puebla is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 217 municipalities and its capital city is Puebla....

 (19%), Guerrero
Guerrero
Guerrero officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Guerrero is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 81 municipalities and its capital city is Chilpancingo....

 (17%), San Luis Potosí
San Luis Potosí
San Luis Potosí officially Estado Libre y Soberano de San Luis Potosí is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 58 municipalities and its capital city is San Luis Potosí....

 (15%) and Veracruz
Veracruz
Veracruz, formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave , is one of the 31 states that, along with the Federal District, comprise the 32 federative entities of Mexico. It is divided in 212 municipalities and its capital city is...

 (15%). Oaxaca is the state with the greatest number of distinct indigenous peoples and languages in the country.

Other ethnic groups

Other groups of immigrants include Arabs of Lebanese
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...

 and Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

n origin present in significant numbers in Puebla
Puebla
Puebla officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Puebla is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 217 municipalities and its capital city is Puebla....

 and Yucatán
Yucatán
Yucatán officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Yucatán is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 106 municipalities and its capital city is Mérida....

, as well as Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, and Koreans. The largest concentrations of East Asians are in Baja California
Baja California
Baja California officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is both the northernmost and westernmost state of Mexico. Before becoming a state in 1953, the area was known as the North...

 with a large Chinatown
Chinatowns in Latin America
Chinatowns in Latin America developed with the rise of Chinese immigration in the 19th century to various countries in Latin America as contract laborers in agricultural and fishing industries. Most came from Guangdong Province. Since the 1970s, the new arrivals have typically hailed from Hong...

 in Mexicali
Mexicali
Mexicali is the capital of the State of Baja California, seat of the Municipality of Mexicali, and 2nd largest city in Baja California. The City of Mexicali has a population of 689,775, according to the 2010 census, while the population of the entire metropolitan area reaches 936,826.The city...

 known as La Chinesca on the US-Mexican border. There are various others unmentioned here.

Race

Neither the INEGI nor the CONAPO classify the population according to race. Most of these are the descendants of the Spanish colonial population called criollo
Criollo people
The Criollo class ranked below that of the Iberian Peninsulares, the high-born permanent residence colonists born in Spain. But Criollos were higher status/rank than all other castes—people of mixed descent, Amerindians, and enslaved Africans...

. However, other immigrants arrived during the Second Mexican Empire
Second Mexican Empire
The Second Mexican Empire was the name of Mexico under the regime established from 1864 to 1867. It was created by Napoleon III of France, who attempted to use the Mexican adventure to recapture some of the grandeur of earlier Napoleonic times...

 (mostly French) and during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, mostly from Italy, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Germany. White Americans, Croats, Armenians, Greeks, Germans, Polish, Romanians, Russians and Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany...

, along with many Spanish refugees fleeing the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...

 of 1937 who also immigrated seeking asylum or better economic prospects. 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
Tamaulipas
Tamaulipas officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Tamaulipas is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 43 municipalities and its capital city is Ciudad Victoria. The capital city was named after Guadalupe Victoria, the...

. Some communities of European immigrants have remained isolated from the rest of the general population since their arrival, amongst them the Dutch Mennonite
Mennonite
The Mennonites are a group of Christian Anabaptist denominations named after the Frisian Menno Simons , who, through his writings, articulated and thereby formalized the teachings of earlier Swiss founders...

s of Chihuahua and Durango
Durango
Durango officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Durango is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is located in Northwest Mexico. With a population of 1,632,934, it has Mexico's second-lowest population density, after Baja...

, the Veneto
Veneto
Veneto is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about 5 million, ranking 5th in Italy.Veneto had been for more than a millennium an independent state, the Republic of Venice, until it was eventually annexed by Italy in 1866 after brief Austrian and French rule...

s of Chipilo
Chipilo
Chipilo is a small city in the state of Puebla, Mexico. It is located twelve kilometers south of the state capital Puebla, Puebla, at a height of 2,150 meters above sea level. Its official name is Chipilo de Francisco Javier Mina...

, Puebla
Puebla
Puebla officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Puebla is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 217 municipalities and its capital city is Puebla....

, which have retained their original languages.

Genetic research

A study presented by the American Society of Human Genetics
American Society of Human Genetics
The American Society of Human Genetics , founded in 1948, is the primary professional membership organization for specialists in human genetics worldwide. As of 2009, the organization had approximately 8,000 members...

 has showed (based on genes) that, on average, Mestizo
Mestizo
Mestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent...

 Mexicans are (genetically) 58.96% European, 35.05% "Asian" (Amerindian), and 05.03% African. Sonora shows the highest European contribution (70.63%) and Guerrero the lowest (51.98%) where we also observe the highest Asian contribution (37.17%). African contribution ranges from 2.8% in Sonora to 11.13% in Veracruz. 80% of the Mexican population was classed as mestizo (meaning being racially mixed in some degree).

Another study however, performed by the National Institute of Genetic Medicine (INMEGEN) in Mexico and supported by the government in the country showed that the Mestizo population in Mexico were on average 55% of indigenous ancestry followed by 41.8 % of European, 1.8% of African, and 1.2% of East Asian ancestry. The sample size used for this research involved 300 Mestizos who were picked from the states of Guerrero, Sonora, Veracruz, Yucatán, Zacatecas, and Guanajuato. Whereas Mestizo individuals from the state of Guerrero showed on average 66% of indigenous ancestry, those from the state of Sonora displayed about 61.6% European ancestry. There was a clear increase in indigenous ancestry as one traveled towards the Southern states in Mexico, while the indigenous ancestry declined as one traveled to the Northern states in the country, such as Sonora. The name of this paper was titled "Analysis of genomic diversity in Mexican Mestizo populations to develop genomic medicine in Mexico" by researchers such as Irma Silva-Zolezzi1 and others.

Mexican nationality and citizenship

The Constitution of Mexico
Constitution of Mexico
The Political Constitution of the United Mexican States is the current constitution of Mexico. It was drafted in Santiago de Querétaro, in the State of Querétaro, by a constitutional convention, during the Mexican Revolution. It was approved by the Constitutional Congress on February 5, 1917...

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 in 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.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK