How many indigenous people's are in Mexico?
Demographics of Mexico
The category of "indigena" (indigenous) in Mexico has been defined based on different criteria through 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 persons that speak an Indigenous language, based on this criteria approximately 5.4% of the population is Indigenous. Nonetheless, activists for the rights of indigenous peoples have referred to the usage of this criteria for census purposes as "statistical genocide"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-identifies as Indigenous. According to this 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. Finally According to the latest intercensal survey carried out by the Mexican government on 2015, 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 altogheter.
Indigenous peoples of Mexico
Literacy rates are much lower for the indigenous, particularly in the southwestern states of Guerrero and Oaxaca due lack of access to education and a lack of the educational literature available in indigenous languages. Literacy rates are also much lower, with 27% of indigenous children between 6 and 14 being illiterate compared to a national average of 12%. The Mexican government is obligated to provide education in indigenous languages, but many times fails to provide schooling in languages other than Spanish. As a result, many indigenous groups have resorted to creating their own small community educational institutions.
Mexicans of European descent
When the 1921 census's results are compared with the results of Mexico's recent censuses as well as with modern genetic research, high consistence is found in regards 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 that self-identifies 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 on which states that have been shown to have a considerably high European ancestry per scientific research 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 identify as such.
Indigenous peoples of Mexico
The Law of Linguistic Rights of the Indigenous Languages recognizes 62 indigenous languages as "national languages" which have the same validity as Spanish in all territories where they are spoken. According to the National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Data Processing (INEGI), approximately 6.7% of the population speaks an indigenous language. That is, less than half of those identified as indigenous. 6,695,228 people 5 years or older were tallied as indigenous-language speakers in the 2010 census, an increase of about 650,000 from the 2000 census. In 2000, 6,044,547 people 5 years or older spoke an indigenous language.
Indigenous peoples of Mexico
The majority of the indigenous population is concentrated in the central and southern states. According to the CDI, the states with the greatest percentage of indigenous population as of 2015 are:In 2011 a large scale mitochondrial sequencing in Mexican Americans revealed 85 to 90% of maternal mtDNA lineages are of Native American origin, with the remainder having European (5-7%) or African ancestry (3-5%). Thus the observed frequency of Native American mtDNA in Mexican/Mexican Americans is higher than was expected on the basis of autosomal estimates of Native American admixture for these populations i.e. ~ 30-46%http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2148-11-293.pdf
“For mtDNA variation, some studies have measured Native American, European and African contributions to Mexican and Mexican American populations, revealing 85 to 90% of mtDNA lineages are of Native American origin, with the remainder having European (5-7%) or African ancestry (3-5%). Thus the observed frequency of Native American mtDNA in Mexican/Mexican Americans is higher than was expected on the basis of autosomal estimates of Native American admixture for these populations i.e. ~ 30-46%. The difference is indicative of directional mating involving preferentially immigrant men and Native American women. This type of genetic asymmetry has been observed in other populations, including Brazilian individuals of African ancestry, as the analysis of sex specific and autosomal markers has revealed evidence for substantial European admixture that was mediated mostly through men. In our 384 completely sequenced Mexican American mitochondrial genomes, 12 (3.1%) are of African ancestry belonging to haplogroups L0a1a’3’, L2a1, L3b, L3d and U6a7; 52 (13.6%) belong to European haplogroups HV, JT, U1, U4, U5; and K and the majority (320, 83.3%) are of Native American ancestry.”
Mexicans
The majority of the samples (approx. 90%) hailed from Mexico City and Southern Mexican states, meaning that Northern and Western regions of Mexico were underrepresented as around 45% of Mexico's population lives there.
Nationwide surveys sponsored by the Mexican government that quantify the percentage of the different skin tones present on Mexico's population have been made, the first in 2010 by the CONAPRED (Mexico's National Bureau for Prevention of Discrimination) and the second in 2017 by the INEGI (Mexico's National Institute of Statistics) Each study used a different color palette, in the case of CONAPRED's study it was a palette with 9 color choices developed by the institute itself whereas in the case of the INEGI study the palette used was the palette for the PERLA (Latin American Race and Ethnicity Project) with 11 color categories.
Zacatecas
As of 2010, the state had a population of 1,490,668. Forty-one percent of the population lives in rural areas, with a population density of 18.13 per square kilometer. Fifty-nine percent of the population lives in urban areas such as Fresnillo (pop. 213,139), Guadalupe (159,991), Zacatecas (138,176), Pinos, and Sombrerete. Ninety four percent of the population is Roman Catholic. In the year 2008, Zacatecas had the smallest indigenous population percentage-wise in Mexico: 0.3%. Only the state of Aguascalientes has a smaller number of indigenous people. Only four in 1,000 speak an indigenous language, compared to the national average of 60/1000. Indigenous languages spoken in the state include Huichol (1000 speakers), Nahuatl (500), Tepehuan (just under 500) and Tlapanec (about 400).
Indigenous peoples of Mexico
The indigenous peoples in Mexico have the right of free determination under the second article of the constitution. According to this article the indigenous peoples are granted:
Mestizo
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 Mestizo society, eventually assimilating indigenous peoples completely to mainstream Mexican culture, working toward the goal of eventually solving the "Indian problem" by transforming indigenous communities into Mestizo communities.
Sometimes, particularly outside of Mexico, the word "mestizo" is used with the meaning of Mexican persons with mixed Indigenous and European blood. This usage does not conform to the Mexican social reality where a person of pure indigenous genetic heritage would be considered mestizo either by rejecting his indigenous culture or by not speaking an indigenous language, and a person with none or 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 the Yucatán peninsula the word mestizo has a different meaning to the one used in the rest of Mexico, being 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. In Chiapas, the term "Ladino" is used instead of mestizo.
Demographics of Mexico
The Census Inegi 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 in charge of the analysis and research of population dynamics. The National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples (CDI), also undertakes research and analysis of the sociodemographic and linguistic indicators of the indigenous peoples in Mexico.
Acaxochitlán
Unlike the United States where there are many linguistic groups, most of these groups are foreign, but a few are native. 
In the early twentieth century indigenous Mexicans were more than half of the population, their participation in the Mexican Revolution calling land and better living conditions, he was satisfied only partially, currently according to the count of 1995 the natives are only 11% of the total population.
Cherokee Nation of Mexico
The Cherokee Nation of Mexico, also known as the Cherokee Nation of Sequoyah of Mexico, Texas, and U.S.A. Reservation and Church is an organization of individuals who claim descent from Cherokee tribe who migrated to Mexico during the 19th century. They are an unrecognized tribe with a presence in Zaragoza, Coahuila, Mexico. According to Robert J. Conley, the Cherokee Nation of Mexico is recognized by the state of Coahuilla; however, according to the Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas, which manages the official surveys of indigenous groups in Mexico, the only Native Mexicans in Coahuila are the Kickapoo people.
White people
Estimates of Mexico's white population differ greatly in both, methodology and percentages given, extra-official sources such as the "World Factbook" and "Encyclopædia Britannica", which use the 1921 census results as the base of their estimations calculate Mexico's White population as only 9% or between one tenth to one fifth (the results of the 1921 census, however, have been contested by various historians and deemed inaccurate). Surveys that account for phenotypical traits and have performed actual field research suggest rather higher percentages: using the presence of blond hair as reference to classify a Mexican as white, 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%. 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, nationwide surveys in the general population 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 of 47% and 49% respectivelly. A study performed in hospitals of Mexico City reported that an average 51.8% of Mexican newborns presented the congenital skin birthmark known as the Mongolian spot whilst it was absent in 48.2% of the analyzed babies. 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.
Haitians in Mexico
There are 940 Haitian-born people living in Mexico, as of 2010, according to the OCED. In 2017, there were approximately 5,000 Haitian-born people living in Mexico, primarily in the border region with the United States.
Indigenous peoples in Ecuador
There is debate about the quantities of indigenous currently inhabiting Ecuador. Some elements of society, most famously the former President León Febres Cordero, have insisted that the indigenous make up no more than two million people. Historian Enrique Ayala Mora, too, estimates that the indigenous population is no more than sixteen percent. Other organizations, such as CONAIE, while giving varying estimates in different years, tend to approximate closer to four million. The discrepancy arises from the ways in which they are counted: "[d]oes one consider them such on the basis of physical characteristics or whether they live in the Andean Indian world?"
Morelos
While indigenous languages have almost completely disappeared since the Conquest, many old customs and traditions continue to live on as part of many people's identity. Many ethnic Nahuas conserve much of their ancient knowledge, such as dances, music agricultural practices and rituals, although most are mixed with Catholic and moderns beliefs and practices. Since Mexico's census only counts the indigenous by language spoken and not by ethnicity, it is not possible to be sure of the precise number of Nahua in Morelos. Between 32 and 35 communities in the state have been identified as being "indigenous" based on prevailing customs and tradition. However, this does not take into account migrant workers or who have immigrated to the state from other parts of Mexico. In 2000, 30,896 people were counted as speaking an indigenous language, with the municipalities of Cuautla, Cuernavaca, Ayala, Puente de Ixtla, Temixco and Tetela del Volcàn having the highest number of speakers.
Chihuahua (state)
The last census in Mexico that asked for an individual's race, which was taken in 1921, indicated that 50.09% of the population identified as Mestizo (mixed Amerindian and European descent). The second-largest group was whites at 36.33% of the population. The third-largest group was the "pure indigenous" population, constituting 12.76% of the population. The remaining 0.82% of the population of Chihuahua was considered "other", i.e., neither Mestizo, indigenous, nor white. The most important indigenous tribes of the state of Chihuahua are:Although the great majority of residents of the state of Chihuahua are Catholics, there is a large diversity of religions within the state. There are many apostolic churches, Mormon wards, and large Mennonite communities. Those aged 5 years and older claim to be the following religious beliefs: 84.6% are Catholic; 7.1% are Protestant; 2.0% are Nondenominational; 5.1% are Atheist. Compared to most of Mexico, the state has a higher percentage of Protestants.
Indigenous peoples
In Brazil, the term "índio" ( or ) is used by most of the population, the media, the indigenous peoples themselves and even the government (FUNAI is acronym for the Fundação Nacional do Índio) (National Indio Foundation), although its Hispanic equivalent "indio" is widely not considered politically correct and falling into disuse.
Indigenous peoples in Canada comprise the First Nations, Inuit and Métis. The descriptors "Indian" and "Eskimo" have fallen into disuse in Canada. There are currently over 600 recognized First Nations governments or bands encompassing 1,272,790 peoples spread across Canada with distinctive Aboriginal cultures, languages, art, and music. National Aboriginal Day recognises the cultures and contributions of Aboriginals to the history of Canada
Indigenous peoples of Mexico
Generally, indigenous Mexicans live more poorly than non-indigenous Mexicans however, social development varies between states, different indigenous ethnicities and between rural and urban areas. In all states indigenous people have higher infant mortality, in some states almost double of the non-indigenous populations.
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
Many parts of the Americas are still populated by indigenous peoples; some countries have sizable populations, especially Belize, Bolivia, Canada, Chile, Ecuador, Greenland, Guatemala, Guyana, Mexico, Panama, Peru and the United States. At least a thousand different indigenous languages are spoken in the Americas. Some, such as the Quechuan languages, Aymara, Guaraní, Mayan languages and Nahuatl, count their speakers in millions. Many also maintain aspects of indigenous cultural practices to varying degrees, including religion, social organization and subsistence practices. Like most cultures, over time, cultures specific to many indigenous peoples have evolved to incorporate traditional aspects but also cater to modern needs. Some indigenous peoples still live in relative isolation from Western culture and a few are still counted as uncontacted peoples.
Indigenous peoples of Mexico
The indigenous population of Mexico has in recent decades increased both in absolute numbers as-well as a percentage of the population. This is largely due to increased self-identification as indigenous, as-well as indigenous women having higher birth rates as compared to the Mexican average. Indigenous peoples are more likely to live in more rural areas, than the Mexican average, but many do reside in urban or suburban areas, particularly, in the central states of Mexico, Puebla, Tlaxcala, the Federal District and the Yucatán Peninsula.
Mexicans
When the 1921 census' results are compared with the results of Mexico's recent censuses as well as with modern genetic research, high consistence is found in regards 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 that self-identifies 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 on which states that have been shown to have a considerably high European ancestry per scientific research 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 frequences 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 identify as such.
List of birds of Mexico
This is a list of the bird species recorded in Mexico. The avifauna of Mexico included a total of 1118 species as of February 2018, according to "Bird Checklists of the World". Of these species, 87 are rare or accidental, 10 have been introduced by humans, 108 are endemic, and five more breed only in Mexico though their non-breeding range is larger. Four species are known to be extinct, 65 are globally vulnerable or endangered, and three of the latter might also be extinct. The total figure includes a number of species which are known only from sight records; they are listed but not especially noted. An additional endemic species was named in July 2018, so it is not in the above counts.
Indigenous peoples of Mexico
Indigenous peoples of Mexico (), Native Mexicans (), or Mexican Native Americans (), are those who are part of communities that trace their roots back to populations and communities that existed in what is now Mexico prior to the arrival of Europeans.
Indigenous peoples of Mexico
The indigenous population participate in the workforce longer than the national average, starting earlier and continuing longer. A major reason for this is that significant number of the indigenous practice economically under productive agriculture and receive no regular salaries. Indigenous people also have less access to health care.
Mexicans of European descent
Also known as the "Revillagigedo census" due to its creation being ordered by the Count of the same name, this census was Mexico's (then known as the Viceroyalty of New Spain) first ever nationwide population census. Most of its original datasets have reportedly been lost; thus 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 don't vary much, with Europeans ranging from 18% to 22% of New Spain's population, Mestizos ranging from 21% to 25%, Indians ranging from 51% to 61% and Africans being between 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 on them suffering of higher mortality rates, due living in remote locations rather than on cities and towns founded by the Spanish colonists or being at war with them. It is also for these reasons that the number of Indigenous Mexicans presents the greater variation range between publications, as in cases their numbers in a given location were estimated rather than counted, leading to possible overestimations in some provinces and possible underestimations in others.
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Mexicans
Regardless of the possible imprecisions related to the counting of Indigenous peoples living outside the colonized areas, the effort that New Spain's authorities put on 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/subjects, as example the censuses made by the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata would only count the inhabitants of the colonized settlements. Other example would be the censuses made by the United States, that did not include Indigenous peoples living among the general population until 1860, and indigenous peoples as a whole until 1900.
Mexican Americans
While Mexico does not have comprehensive modern racial censuses, some international publications believe that Mexican people of predominately European descent (Spanish or other European) make up approximately one-sixth (16.5%), this based on the figures of the last racial census in the country, made in 1921. According to an opinion poll conducted by the Latinobarómetro organization in 2011, 52% of Mexican respondents said they were Mestizos, 19% Indigenous, 6% White, 2% Mulattos and 3% "other race."
Afro-Mexicans
About 1.2% of Mexico's population has significant African ancestry, with 1.38 million self-recognized during the 2015 Intercensus Estimate. Numerous Afro-Mexicans in the 21st century are naturalized black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean. The 2015 Intercensus Estimate was the first time in which Afro-Mexicans could identify themselves as such and was a preliminary effort to include the identity before the 2020 census. The question asked on the survey was "Based on your culture, history and traditions, do you consider yourself black, meaning Afro-Mexican or Afro-descendant?" and came about following various complaints made by civil rights groups and government officials.
Mexicans
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, resembling in aspect that of northern Spaniards. In the north and west of Mexico, the indigenous tribes were substantially smaller than those found in central and southern Mexico, and also much less organized, thus they remained isolated from the rest of the population or even in some cases were hostile towards Mexican colonists. The northeast region, in which the indigenous population was eliminated by early European settlers, became the region with the highest proportion of whites during the Spanish colonial period. However, recent immigrants from southern Mexico have been changing, to some degree, its demographic trends.
Demographics of Mexico
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, resembling in aspect that of northern Spaniards. In the north and west of Mexico, the indigenous tribes were substantially smaller than those found in central and southern Mexico, and also much less organized, thus they remained isolated from the rest of the population or even in some cases were hostile towards Mexican colonists. The northeast region, in which the indigenous population was eliminated by early European settlers, became the region with the highest proportion of whites during the Spanish colonial period. However, recent immigrants from southern Mexico have been changing, to some degree, its demographic trends.
White people
Mexico's northern and western regions have the highest percentages of White population, where, according to the American historian and anthropologist Howard F. Cline the majority of the people have no native admixture or is of predominantly European ancestry, resembling in aspect that of northern Spaniards. In the north and west of Mexico, the indigenous tribes were substantially smaller than those found in central and southern Mexico, and also much less organized, thus they remained isolated from the rest of the population or even in some cases were hostile towards Mexican colonists. The northeast region, in which the indigenous population was eliminated by early European settlers, became the region with the highest proportion of whites during the Spanish colonial period. However, recent immigrants from southern Mexico have been changing, to some degree, its demographic trends.
Oaxaca
The Mixe people account for another 10% of the indigenous population at just over 103,000 people. The Mixe are an isolated group in the northeastern part of the state, close to the border of Veracruz. Their region includes 19 municipalities and 108 communities. The Mixes call themselves Ayuuk, which means The People. It is unknown where the Mixe migrated from, with some speculating from as far as Peru, but they arrived in waves from 1300 to 1533. They came into conflict with the Mixtecs and Zapotecs, but allied themselves with the Zapotecs against the Aztecs, then resisted the Spanish. The Mixe language has seven dialects and this group has the highest rate of monolingualism (36% of speakers in the year 2000) of any Indigenous group in Mexico.
Native American cultures in the United States
There are approximately 296 spoken (or formerly spoken) indigenous languages north of Mexico, 269 of which are grouped into 29 families.
Morelos
The indigenous population of the state is estimated at 8%, just under the national average of 10%. However, only 2% of the population is counted as speaking an indigenous language compared to 7% nationally. The total counted in 2005 by INEGI was 24,757.
Historically, various Nahua peoples have dominated the state. This population severely diminished during the colonial period and again during the Porfiriato (late 19th and early 20th centuries), when many indigenous peasants were sent to other parts of the country to work. Those considered to be ethnically indigenous are located in 33 municipalities with most concentrated in 15 of these. Many identify as Mixtec, Tlapaneco and Zapotec who have immigrated from Puebla, Guerrero and Oaxaca. Most of those who identify as Nahua are native to the state. Many of the immigrant indigenous are migrant workers, traveling among fields of sugar cane, corn, tomatoes and onions. Some return to their home states in the off-season and some remain permanently in Morelos.
Languages of Mexico
The only single indigenous language spoken by more than a million people in Mexico is the Nahuatl language; the other Native American language with a large population of native speakers include Yucatec Maya.
Mexicans
According to the CDI, the states with the greatest percentage of indigenous population are Yucatán, with 62.7%, Quintana Roo with 33.8% and Campeche with 32% of the population being indigenous, most of them Maya; Oaxaca with 58% of the population, the most numerous groups being the Mixtec and Zapotec peoples; Chiapas has 32.7%, the majority being Tzeltal and Tzotzil Maya; Hidalgo with 30.1%, the majority being Otomi; Puebla with 25.2%, and Guerrero with 22.6%, mostly Nahua people and the states of San Luis Potosí and Veracruz both home to a population of 19% indigenous people, mostly from the Totonac, Nahua and Teenek (Huastec) groups.
Mesoamerican chronology
Mexico became independent from Spain in 1821, with some participation of indigenous in decade-long political struggles, but for their own motivations. With the fall of colonial government, the Mexican state abolished distinctions between ethnic groups, that is the separate governance for indigenous populations in the "República de Indios". The new sovereign country made, in theory at least, all Mexicans citizens of the independent nation-state rather than vassals of the Spanish crown, with different legal standing. A long period of political chaos in the post-independence period among white elites largely did not affect indigenous peoples and their communities. Mexican conservatives were largely in charge of the national government and kept in place practices from the old colonial order. However, in the 1850s, Mexican liberals gained power and attempted to formulate and implement reforms that did affect indigenous communities, as well as the Catholic Church. The Mexican Constitution of 1857 abolished the ability of corporations to hold land, which aimed at taking assets out of the hands of the Catholic Church in Mexico and forcing indigenous communities to divide their community-held lands. Liberals' aimed at turning indigenous community members pursuing subsistence farming into yeoman farmers holding their own land. Mexican conservatives repudiated the liberal reform laws since they attacked the Catholic Church, but indigenous communities also participated in a three-year civil war. In the late nineteenth century, liberal army general Porfirio Díaz, a Mestizo did much for modernizing Mexico and integrating it into the world economy, but there were renewed pressures on indigenous communities and their lands. These exploded in certain areas of Mexico during the ten-year long civil war, the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920). In the aftermath of the Revolution, the Mexican government attempted simultaneously shore up indigenous culture, while at the same time also attempting to integrate the indigenous as citizens of the nation, turning indigenous into peasants ("campesinos"). This has proved more difficult than policy planners imagined, with resilient indigenous communities continuing to struggle for rights within the nation.
Indigenous peoples of Mexico
According to 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 (official census institute), in 2015, 25,694,928 people in Mexico self-identify as being indigenous of many different ethnic groups, which constitute 21.5% of Mexico's population.
Afro-Mexicans
According to the 2015 Encuesta Intercensal, there were 1,381,853 Mexicans that self-identified as Afro-descendants, or 1.2% of the country's population. This is the first time that the government of Mexico has asked citizens whether they identify as Afro-Mexican. Places with large Afro-Mexican communities are: Costa Chica of Guerrero, Costa Chica of Oaxaca and Veracruz. While Northern Mexico has some towns with a minority of Mexicans of African descent. Afro-descendants can be found throughout the country, however they are numerically insignificant in some states. There are also recent immigrants of African and Caribbean origin.
Indigenous peoples of Mexico
These five states accounted for 61.1% of all indigenous language speakers in Mexico. Most indigenous Mexicans do not speak their own languages and speak only Spanish. This is reflected in these five states' populations. Although Oaxaca, Chiapas, Veracruz, Puebla, and Yucatán have 34.2%, 27.2%, 9.4%, 11.7%, and 30.3% of their populations speaking an indigenous language, these states' indigenous populations are 65.73%, 36.15%, 29.25%, 35.28%, 65.4% respectively.
Mexico
Mexico ranks fourth in the world in biodiversity and is one of the 17 megadiverse countries. With over 200,000 different species, Mexico is home of 10–12% of the world's biodiversity. Mexico ranks first in biodiversity in reptiles with 707 known species, second in mammals with 438 species, fourth in amphibians with 290 species, and fourth in flora, with 26,000 different species. Mexico is also considered the second country in the world in ecosystems and fourth in overall species. About 2,500 species are protected by Mexican legislations.
Indigenous peoples of Mexico
The category of "indigena" (indigenous) can be defined narrowly according to linguistic criteria including only persons that speak one of Mexico's 89 indigenous languages, this is the categorization used by the National Mexican Institute of Statistics. It can also be defined broadly to include all persons who self identify 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".
María de Jesús Patricio Martínez
On May 28, 2017, a congress was held in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, where Marichuy was designated by the CNI as the "representative indigenous spokeswoman" by 840 delegates from 60 indigenous communities of Mexico. The Congress also resolved to choose Marichuy as spokesman for the indigenous peoples of Mexico in the 2018 general election. Media reported that Patricio Martínez is the first indigenous woman to run for the Presidency of Mexico.
Demographics of Mexico
Estimates of Mexico's white population differ greatly in both, methodology and percentages given, extra-official sources such as the World factbook and Encyclopedia Brittanica, which use the 1921 census results as the base of their estimations calculate Mexico's White population as only 9% or between one tenth to one fifth one tenth or one fifth (the results of the 1921 census, however, have been contested by various historians and deemed innaccurate). Surveys that account for phenotypical traits and have performed actual field research suggest rather higher percentages: using the presence of blond hair as reference to classify a Mexican as white, 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 reported a percentages of 47% in 2010 and 49% in 2017 respectivelly.
New Mexico
According to the United States Census Bureau, 1.5% of the population identifies as multiracial/mixed-race, a population larger than both the Asian and NHPI population groups. In 2008, New Mexico had the highest percentage (47%) of Hispanics (of any race) of any state, with 83% native-born and 17% foreign-born.
Ley General de Derechos Lingüísticos de los Pueblos Indígenas
This law is a juridical element that specifies the recognition of the individual and collective rights of the persons and peoples who own and practice some of the 68 indigenous languages of Mexico. In addition, it specifies nations as to be understood by indigenous languages and national languages, the conditions of application of the decree, and the attributes, purposes and functions of the National Institute of Indigenous Languages. The law also considers indigenous languages an integral part of the national cultural and linguistic heritage of Mexico.
Pan-Indianism
The National Indigenous Congress (Congreso Nacional Indígena, CNI) is an organization of communities, nations, towns, neighbourhoods and indigenous tribes of Mexico. In its own words, the CNI is "... a space of unity, reflection and organization of the indigenous peoples of Mexico, promoting the integral reconstitution of the original peoples and the construction of a society in which all cultures, all the colors, all the towns that we are Mexico". Since its foundation, among several activities, five national congresses have been held.
Indigenous peoples of Mexico
When Mexico gained independence in 1821, the casta system was eliminated as a legal structure, but racial divides remained. 
White Mexican argued about what the solution was to the "Indian Problem", that is indigenous who continued to live in communities and were not integrated politically or socially as citizens of the new republic. The Mexican constitution of 1824 has several articles pertaining to indigenous peoples. The second article of the constitution of Mexico recognizes and enforces the right of indigenous peoples and communities to self-determination and therefore their autonomy to:
Mexicans of European descent
Made right after the consummation of the Mexican revolution, the social context on which this census was made makes it particularly unique, as the government of the time was in the process of rebuilding the country and was looking forward to unite all Mexicans under 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 to cement the "mestizaje" ideology (that 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 remain prominent nowadays, with extraofficial international publications such as "The World Factbook" and Encyclopædia Britannica using them as a reference to estimate Mexico's racial composition up to this day.
Asian Mexicans
Asian Mexicans () are Mexicans of Asian descent. Although they make up less than 1% of the total population of Mexico, they are a notable minority. Asians are considered the "cuarta raíz" (fourth root) of Mexico in conjunction with the three other roots: Native, European and African.
Mexico
Similarly to Mestizo and Indigenous peoples, estimations for the percentage of European-descended Mexicans within the Mexican population vary considerably: according to the Encyclopædia Britannica which uses as reference the 1921 census their numbers range from around 10%–20%. (the results of the 1921 census, however, have been contested by various historians and deemed inaccurate). Recent field surveys that account for different phenotypical trais (hair color, skin color etc.) in the other hand, report rather higher percentages, with it reaching 47% according to a survey carried out by the Mexican government with the aim to address ethnic discrimination in the country. While during the colonial era, most of the European migration into Mexico was Spanish, in the 19th and 20th centuries a substantial number of non-Spanish Europeans immigrated to the country. According to 20th- and 21st-century academics, large scale intermixing between European immigrants and 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 European men married with European women. Said registers also put in question other narratives held by contemporary academics, such as European migrants who arrived in 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 and there were menial workers and people in poverty who were of complete Spanish origin. Nowadays Mexico's northern and western regions have the highest European populations, with the majority of the people not having native admixture or being of predominantly European ancestry.
The Afro-Mexican population (1,381,853 individuals ) is an ethnic group made up of descendants of Colonial-era slaves and recent immigrants of sub-Saharan African descent. Mexico had an active slave trade during the colonial period and some 200,000 Africans were taken there, primarily in the 17th century. The creation of a national Mexican identity, especially after the Mexican Revolution, emphasized Mexico's indigenous and European past; it passively eliminated the African ancestors and contributions. Most of the African-descended population was absorbed into the surrounding Mestizo (mixed European/indigenous) and indigenous populations through unions among the groups. Evidence of this long history of intermarriage with Mestizo and indigenous Mexicans is also expressed in the fact that in the 2015 inter-census, 64.9% (896,829) of Afro-Mexicans also identified as indigenous. It was also reported that 9.3% of Afro-Mexicans speak an indigenous language. The states with the highest self-report of Afro-Mexicans were Guerrero (6.5% of the population), Oaxaca (4.95%) and Veracruz (3.28%). Afro-Mexican culture is strongest in the communities of the Costa Chica of Oaxaca and Costa Chica of Guerrero.
Demographics of Mexico
According to official statistics —as reported by the National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples or CDI— Amerindians make up 10-14% of the country's population, more than half of them (5.4% of total population) 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 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.
Intercultural Universities in Mexico
Intercultural Universities in Mexico are higher education institutions which were established in 2004 in response to the lack of enrollment of the indigenous population in Mexico. While an estimated 10% of the population of Mexico is indigenous, it is the least represented in higher education. According to estimates, only between 1% and 3% of higher education enrollment in Mexico is indigenous. In response to this inequality, the General Coordination for Intercultural and Bilingual Education at the Ministry of Education established Intercultural Universities with the active participation of indigenous organizations and academic institutions in each region. These institutions are located in densely indigenous areas and, though they allow for diversity in enrollment, they are especially intended for the indigenous population. Founded on the principle of intercultural education, they aim to foster dialogue between different cultures and represent a way of responding to both the historical and more recent demands of indigenous peoples.
Mexicans
Of all the ethnic groups that have been surveyed Mestizos are notably absent, which is likely due to the label's fluid and subjective definition, which complicates its precise quantification. However, it can be safely assumed that Mestizos make up at least the remaining 30% unassessed percentage of Mexico's population with possibilities of increasing if the methodologies of the extant surveys are considered. As example the 2015 intercensal survey considered as Indigenous Mexicans and Afro-Mexicans altogether individuals who self-identified as "part Indigenous" or "part African" thus, said people technically would be Mestizos. Similarly, White Mexicans were quantified based on physical traits/appearance, thus technically a Mestizo with a percentage of Indigenous ancestry that was low enough to not affect his/her primarily European phenotype was considered to be white. Finally, the remaining ethnicities, for being of a rather low number or being faiths have more permissive classification criteria, therefore a Mestizo could claim to belong to one of them by practicing the faith, or by having an ancestor who belonged to said ethnicities.
Mexicans
According to a 2009 report by the Mexican Genome Project, which sampled 300 Mexicans who self-identified as Mestizos from six Mexican states and one indigenous group, the gene pool of the Mexicans population was calculated to be 55.2% percent indigenous, 41.8% European, 1.0% African, and 1.2% Asian.
Indigenismo in Mexico
In 1940, Cárdenas hosted delegates and participants from 19 American countries, totaling 250 people, at a conference in Pátzcuaro, Michoacan, Mexico to discuss and reevaluate the role of Indigenous populations in American nations. The conference was mainly run and organized by Mexican education reform advocate and indigensita, Moises Saenz. Saenz was an active proponent that cultural pluralism was the only way to accomplish integration of indigenous groups into the national identity as citizens. The importance of this conference was not the spread or creation of Indigenismo ideals or methods, but the potential change in scale to continental Indigenismo and the creation of a Pan-American system. After discussion of a number of topics concerning indigenous populations the conference came up with two main objectives. They decided to work towards improving all aspects of indigenous life and working to protect and preserve their diverse customs and traditions. The conference also decided to establish the Inter-American Indian Institute (III) "an intergovernmental body specializing in the Indian question" which would supplement the individual national indigenous departments. Saenz was appointed as the director of the Institute, but was killed in a car accident the following year. Gamio was later elected as director of the Institute.
Indigenous peoples
All nations in North and South America have populations of indigenous peoples within their borders. In some countries (particularly Latin American), indigenous peoples form a sizable component of the overall national population—in Bolivia they account for an estimated 56–70% of the total nation, and at least half of the population in Guatemala and the Andean and Amazonian nations of Peru. In English, indigenous peoples are collectively referred to by different names that vary by region and include such ethnonyms as Native Americans, Amerindians, and American Indians. In Spanish or Portuguese speaking countries one finds the use of terms such as "pueblos indígenas", "amerindios", "povos nativos", "povos indígenas", and in Peru, "Comunidades Nativas" (Native Communities), particularly among Amazonian societies like the Urarina and Matsés. In Chile there are indigenous tribes like the Mapuches in the Center-South and the Aymaras in the North, also the Rapa Nui indigenous to Easter Island are a Polynesian tribe.
Languages of Mexico
Mexico has about six million citizens who speak indigenous languages. That is the second-largest group in the Americas after Peru. However, a relatively small percentage of Mexico's population speaks an indigenous language compared to other countries in the Americas, such as Guatemala (42.8%), Peru (35%), and even Ecuador (9.4%), Panama (8.3%), Paraguay and Bolivia.
Mexico
According to Mexico's second census ever that considered race, made right after the Mexican revolution in 1921, 59% of Mexico's population was Mestizo, 29% was Indigenous and only 9% was European, with Mestizos being the most numerous ethno-racial group in almost all the states. For a long time this census' results were taken as fact, with extraofficial international publications such as "The World Factbook" and Encyclopædia Britannica using them as a reference to estimate Mexico's racial composition up to this day. In recent time nonetheless, Mexican academics have subjected the census' results to scrutiny, claiming that such a drastic alteration in demographic trends in regards to the 1793 census is not possible and cite, among other statistics the relatively low frequency of marriages between people of different continental ancestries in colonial and early independent Mexico. Said authors claim that the Mexican society went through a "more cultural than biological mestizaje process" sponsored by the state in its efforts to unify the Mexican population which resulted in the inflation of the percentage of the Mestizo Mexican group at the expense of the identity of the other races that exist in Mexico.
Indigenous peoples of Mexico
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 in the nineteenth century and those who immigrated from Guatemala in the 1980s.
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples in Mexico have the right of free determination under the second article of the constitution. According to this article the indigenous peoples are granted:
amongst other rights.
Indigenous peoples of Mexico
The five states with the largest indigenous-language-speaking populations are:
Zapotec peoples
The Zapotecs (Zoogocho Zapotec: "Didxažoŋ)" are an indigenous people of Mexico. The population is concentrated in the southern state of Oaxaca, but Zapotec communities also exist in neighboring states. The present-day population is estimated at approximately 800,000 to 1,000,000 persons, many of whom are monolingual in one of the native Zapotec languages and dialects. In pre-Columbian times, the Zapotec civilization was one of the highly developed cultures of Mesoamerica, which, among other things, included a system of writing. Many people of Zapotec ancestry have emigrated to the United States over several decades, and they maintain their own social organizations in the Los Angeles and Central Valley areas of California.
List of indigenous peoples of Mexico and Central America
This is a list of known Native American peoples throughout the modern nations of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica & Panama which existed during the colonial era. The various tribal entities are listed. The alphabetical section includes all known names of the tribes. Tribes that formed after 1900 are not included, nor are nations with a nexus only in the United States or South America. Due to the history, a special section will be dedicated to extinct cultures, as well.
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The territory of modern-day Mexico was home to numerous indigenous civilizations prior to the arrival of the Spanish "conquistadores": The Olmecs, who flourished from between 1200 BCE to about 400 BCE in the coastal regions of the Gulf of Mexico; the Zapotecs and the Mixtecs, who held sway in the mountains of Oaxaca and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec; the Maya in the Yucatán (and into neighbouring areas of contemporary Central America); the Purépecha in present-day Michoacán and surrounding areas, and the Aztecs/Mexica, who, from their central capital at Tenochtitlan, dominated much of the centre and south of the country (and the non-Aztec inhabitants of those areas) when Hernán Cortés first landed at Veracruz.
Indigenous peoples of Mexico
The insurgency against the Spanish Empire was a decade-long struggle ending in 1821, in which indigenous peoples participated for their own motivations. When New Spain became independent, the new country was named after its capital city, Mexico City. The new flag of the country had at its center a symbol of the Aztecs, an eagle perched on a nopal cactus. Mexico declared the abolition of black slavery in 1829 and the equality of all citizens under the law. Indigenous communities continued to have rights as corporations to maintain land holdings until the liberal Reforma. Some indigenous individuals integrated into the Mexican society, like Benito Juárez of Zapotec ethnicity, the first indigenous president of a country in the New World. As a political liberal, however, Juárez supported the removal of protections of indigenous community corporate land holding.
Chatinos
The Chatinos are an indigenous people of Mexico. Chatino communities are located in the southeastern region of the state of Oaxaca in southern central Mexico. Their native Chatino language is spoken by about 23,000 people (Ethnologue surveys), but ethnic Chatinos may number many more. They call themselves "qne-a tnya-e" and their language "Chaq-f tnya-b".
Indigenismo in Mexico
One of the early critics of Indigenismo in Mexico was Mexican anthropology Guillermo Bonfil Batalla (1935-1991). He helped organize the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples and was a large proponent of Indigenous self-determination. Along with other Mexican anthropologists Bonfil Batalla criticized Indigenismo's attempt to "incorporate the Indian, that is, de-Indianize him" and trying to create a mestizo national identity. Instead, Bonfil Batalla called for a pluri-national state of co-existence where diverse cultural groups that can pursue their own goals free of impositions from Western culture. In January 1971, Bonfil Batalla and other anthropologists, including Darcy Ribiero and Stefano Varese, met in Barbados and released a Declaration that called for a redirection of the roles of the government, religious organizations, and anthropologists in their relationships with indigenous groups. The redirection involved a respect for indigenous culture and transferring power and authority over indigenous community development to the indigenous communities.
Mexican Americans
Mexican Americans ( or ) are Americans of full or partial Mexican descent. As of July 2016, Mexican Americans made up 11.2% of the United States' population, as 36.3 million U.S. residents identified as being of full or partial Mexican ancestry. As of July 2016, Mexican Americans comprised 63.2% of all Hispanics and Latinos in the United States. Many Mexican Americans reside in the American Southwest; over 60% of all Mexican Americans reside in the states of California and Texas. As of 2016, Mexicans make up 53% of total percent population of Latin foreign-born. Mexicans are also the largest foreign-born population, accounting for 27% of the total foreign-born population.
Languages of Mexico
The government of Mexico uses Spanish for most official purposes, but in terms of legislation, its status is not that of an official primary language. The Law of Linguistic Rights establishes Spanish as one of the country's national languages, along with 63 distinct indigenous languages (from seven large families, plus four counted as language isolates). The law, promulgated in 2003, requires the state to offer all of its services to its indigenous citizens in their mother tongues, but in practice this is not yet the case. Note that, as defined by mutual intelligibility, the number of spoken languages in Mexico is much greater than the 63 national languages, because National Institute of Indigenous Languages (INALI) counts distinct ethnic groups for the purposes of political classification. For instance, the Mixtec are a single ethnicity and therefore count as a single language for governmental/legal purposes, but there are a dozen distinct Mixtec dialect regions, each of which includes at least one variety that is not mutually intelligible with those of the other dialect regions (Josserand, 1983), and "Ethnologue" counts 52 varieties of Mixtec that require separate literature. "Ethnologue" currently counts 282 indigenous languages currently spoken in Mexico, plus a number of immigrant languages (Lewis et al. 2018).
Mexican Americans
Ethnically, Mexican Americans are a diverse population, including those of European ancestry (mostly Spanish), Indigenous ancestry, a mixture of both, and Mexicans of Middle Eastern descent (mainly Lebanese). The Mexican population is majority Mestizo, which in colonial times meant to be a person of half European and half Native American ancestry. Nonetheless the meaning of the word has changed through time, currently being used to refer to the segment of the Mexican population who does not speak indigenous languages,
thus in Mexico, the term "Mestizo" has become a cultural label rather than a racial one, it is vaguely defined and includes people who does not have Indigenous ancestry, people who does not have European ancestry as well as people of African ancestry.
Such transformation of the word is not a casualty but the result of a concept known as "mestizaje", which was promoted by the post-revolutionary Mexican government in an effort to create a united Mexican ethno-cultural identity with no racial distinctions. It is because of this that sometimes the Mestizo population in Mexico is estimated to be as high as 93% of the Mexican population.
Indigenous peoples in Peru
In 2017, the 5,972,606 indigenous people formed about 25.7% of the total population of Peru. At the time of the Spanish invasion, the indigenous peoples of the rain forest of the Amazon basin to the east of the Andes were mostly semi-nomadic tribes; they subsisted on hunting, fishing, gathering and migrant agriculture. Those peoples living in the Andes and to the west were dominated by the Inca Empire, who had a complex, hierarchical civilization. It developed many cities, building major temples and monuments with techniques of highly skilled stonemasonry.
Mexicans of European descent
Estimates of Mexico's white population differ greatly in both, methodology and percentages given, extra-official sources such as the "World Factbook" and "Encyclopædia Britannica", which use the 1921 census results as the base of their estimations calculate Mexico's White population as only 9% or between one tenth to one fifth (the results of the 1921 census, however, have been contested by various historians and deemed inaccurate). Surveys that account for phenotypical traits and have performed actual field research suggest rather higher percentages: using the presence of blond hair as reference to classify a Mexican as white, 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%. 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, nationwide surveys in the general population 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 of 47% and 49% respectivelly.
Institute for Mexicans Abroad
According to Pew Research Center, in 2012 there were an estimated 11.2 million unauthorized immigrants living in the United States. Of those 11.2 million, some 52% or 5.85 million were Mexican. This is a consequence of the fact that the country Mexicans, overwhelmingly migrate to, whether legally or not, is the United States. Furthermore, because so many Mexican immigrants are undocumented, they are widely seen as a group to be stateless. The issue that this creates further determines an individual being considered, to a certain degree, invisible in both nation-states: in their country of origin as well as in their new country of residence. In another 2012 analysis, the Pew Research Center estimated that 33.7 million of U.S. Latinos were of Mexican origin. Owing to the number of people within the United States who consider themselves Mexican, or that come from Mexican origins, a disapora actually occurred disregarding being documented or undocumented.
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
Guatemala has one of the largest Indigenous populations in Central America, with approximately 39.3% of the population considering themselves Indigenous. The Indigenous demographic portion of Guatemala’s population consists of majority Mayan groups and one Non-Mayan group. The Mayan portion, can be broken down into 23 groups namely K’iche 11.3%, Kaqchikel 7.4%, Mam 5.5%, Q’eqchi’ 7.6% and Other 7.5%. The Non-Mayan group consists of the Xinca who are another set of Indigenous people making up 0.5% of the population.
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
Indigenous peoples in what is now the contiguous United States, including their descendants, were commonly called "American Indians", or simply "Indians" domestically. Since the late 20th century, when some insisted on using "Native American", as their preferred term, the United States Census Bureau and other parts of government have also adopted it. In Alaska, indigenous peoples belong to 11 cultures with 11 languages. These include the St. Lawrence Island Yupik, Iñupiat, Athabaskan, Yup'ik, Cup'ik, Unangax, Alutiiq, Eyak, Haida, Tsimshian, and Tlingit, and are collectively called Alaska Natives. They include Native American peoples as well as Inuit, who are distinct but occupy areas of the region. The United States has authority with Indigenous Polynesian peoples, which include Hawaiians, Marshallese, Samoan, Tahitian, and Tongan; politically they are classified as Pacific Islands American. They are geographically, genetically, and culturally distinct from indigenous peoples of the mainland continents of the Americas.
Native Americans in the United States make up 0.97% to 2% of the population. In the 2010 census, 2.9 million people identified as Native American, Native Hawaiian, and Alaska Native alone. A total of 5.2 million people identified as Native Americans, either alone or in combination with one or more ethnicity or other races. 1.8 million are enrolled tribal members. Tribes have established their own criteria for membership, which are often based on blood quantum, lineal descent, or residency. A minority of Native Americans live in land units called Indian reservations. Some California and Southwestern tribes, such as the Kumeyaay, Cocopa, Pascua Yaqui and Apache, span both sides of the US–Mexican border. By treaty, Haudenosaunee people have the legal right to freely cross the US–Canada border. Athabascan, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Iñupiat, Blackfeet, Nakota, Cree, Anishinaabe, Huron, Lenape, Mi'kmaq, Penobscot, and Haudenosaunee, among others, live in both Canada and the United States. The international border cut through their common cultural territory.
Indigenous peoples of Mexico
among other rights. Also, the Law of Linguistic Rights of the Indigenous Languages recognizes 89 indigenous languages as "national languages", which have the same validity as Spanish in all territories where they are spoken. According to the National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Data Processing (INEGI), approximately 5.4% of the population speaks an indigenous language - that is, approximately half of those identified as indigenous. 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 in the nineteenth century and those who immigrated from Guatemala in the 1980s.
Demographics of Mexico
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 identify themselves as such.
Constitution of Mexico
The Mexican nation is unique and indivisible. The nation is pluricultural based originally on its indigenous tribes which are those that are descendants of the people that lived in the current territory of the country at the beginning of the colonization and that preserve their own social, economic, cultural, political institutions. The awareness of their indigenous identity should be fundamental criteria to determine to whom the dispositions over indigenous tribes are applied. They are integral communities of an indigenous tribe that form a social, economic and cultural organization.
Mexico
The indigenous population stabilized around one to one and a half million individuals in the 17th century from the most commonly accepted five to ten million pre-contact population. The population decline was primarily the result of communicable diseases, particularly smallpox, introduced during the Columbian Exchange. During the three hundred years of the colonial era, Mexico received between 400,000 and 500,000 Europeans, between 200,000 and 250,000 Africans and between 40,000 and 120,000 Asians. The 18th century saw a great increase in the percentage of mestizos.
Asian Mexicans
The actual population amount is not known, but by some estimate there may be about 200,000 people of mixed Filipino ancestry in Mexico. Most living in the Southwest as a result of the historic Manila-Acapulco galleons. In this part of Mexico, especially in the State of Guerrero, part of the reason they survived as a distinct ethnic group is the relative isolation of the area -with high mountains and uncrossed rivers- that made contact with the rest of the country difficult.
List of Mexican states by indigenous-speaking population
Mexican states by population and percentage being indigenous speaking Mexicans.
Lázaro Cárdenas
The official 1940 government report on the Cárdenas administration states that “the indigenous problem is one of the most serious that the revolutionary government has had to confront.” The aim of the department was to study fundamental problems concerning Mexico's indigenous, particularly economic and social conditions, and then propose measures to the executive power for coordinated action to promote and manage measures considered to be in the interests of centers of indigenous populations. Most indigenous people were found in Veracruz, Oaxaca, Chiapas, and Yucatán, according to the 1930 national census. In 1936 and 1937, the department had approximately 100 employees and a budget of $750,000 pesos, but as with other aspects of the Cárdenas regime, 1938 marked a significant increase personnel and budget; 350 employees in 1938 and a budget of $2.77 million pesos and in 1939, the high point in the department’s budget, there were 850 employees with a budget of $3.75 million pesos. In 1940, the budget remained robust at $3 million pesos, with 650 employees.
Afro-Mexicans
The genetic legacy of Mexico's once significant number of colonial era African slaves is evidenced in non-Black Mexicans as trace amounts of sub-Saharan African DNA found in the average Mexican. Evidence of this long history of intermarriage with Mestizo and indigenous Mexicans is also expressed in the fact that in the 2015 census, 64.9% (896,829) of Afro-Mexicans also identified as indigenous Amerindian Mexicans. It was also reported that 9.3% of Afro-Mexicans speak an indigenous Mexican language.
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
Most Venezuelans have some indigenous heritage and are pardo, even if they identify as white. But those who identify as indigenous, from being raised in those cultures, make up only around 2% of the total population. The indigenous peoples speak around 29 different languages and many more dialects. As some of the ethnic groups are very small, their native languages are in danger of becoming extinct in the next decades. The most important indigenous groups are the Ye'kuana, the Wayuu, the Pemon and the Warao. The most advanced native people to have lived within the boundaries of present-day Venezuela is thought to have been the Timoto-cuicas, who lived mainly in the Venezuelan Andes. Historians estimate that there were between 350 thousand and 500 thousand indigenous inhabitants at the time of Spanish colonization. The most densely populated area was the Andean region (Timoto-cuicas), thanks to their advanced agricultural techniques and ability to produce a surplus of food.
Guelaguetza
Oaxaca has a large native indigenous population, well over 50 percent of the population, compared to 20 percent for Mexico as a whole (depending on systems of classification). Indigenous culture in Oaxaca remains strong, with over 300,000 people in the state who are monolingual in a wide variety of native indigenous languages and many others who are bilingual in Spanish, or follow a predominantly indigenous lifestyle. Unlike Yucatán also located in the Mexican Southeast, where the indigenous culture consists of closely related groups of the same culture (Mayans), the indigenous people in Oaxaca are from many different cultures. "Zapotec" and "Mixtec" are the two biggest ethnic groups in terms of population and area, but there are also a great number of other groups, and all have their own unique traditions and speak diverse, mutually unintelligible languages. The Guelaguetza celebration dates back long before the arrival of the Spanish and remains a defining characteristic of Oaxacan culture. Its origins and traditions come from prehispanic earth-based religious celebrations related to the worship of corn and the corn god. In contemporary Oaxaca, indigenous communities from within the state gather at the Guelaguetza to present their native culture, mainly in the form of music, costumes, dances, and food. It is the most famous indigenous gathering of its kind in Mexico.
Demographics of Oaxaca
Demographically, Oaxaca stands out due to the high percentage of indigenous peoples. It is estimated that at least a third are speakers of indigenous languages (with 5% not able to speak Spanish), accounting for 53% of Mexico’s total indigenous population. The state straddles two Mesoamerican cultural areas. The first extends into the state from the Mayan lands of Chiapas, Yucatan and Guatemala. The northeast of the state is part of the cultures of the Valley of Mexico, with historical influence seen from ancient cities such as Teotihuacan, Tula and Tenochtitlan.
The main reason that indigenous languages and cultures have been able to survive here is the rugged terrain, which isolate communities. This also has the effect of dividing the state into small secluded communities, which have developed independently over time. There are 16 ethno linguistic groups recognized by the Instituto Nacional Indigenista who maintain their individual languages, customs and traditions well into the colonial period and to some extent to the present day. However, some studies put the number of cultures in the state as high as 4,000. This make Oaxaca the most ethnically complex of Mexico’s 31 states.
Mexicans
Made right after the consumation of the Mexican revolution, the social context on which this census was made makes it particularly unique, as the government of the time was in the process of rebuilding the country and was looking forward to unite all Mexicans under 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 to cement the "mestizaje" ideology (that 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 remain prominent nowadays, with extraofficial international publications such as "The World Factbook" and Encyclopædia Britannica using them as a reference to estimate Mexico's racial composition up to this day.
Chiapas
Twelve of Mexico's officially recognized native peoples live in the state have conserved their language, customs, history dress and traditions to a significant degree. The primary groups include the Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Ch'ol, Tojolabal, Zoque, Chuj, Kanjobal, Mam, Jacalteco, Mochó Cakchiquel and Lacandon. Most indigenous communities are found in the municipalities of the Centro, Altos, Norte and Selva regions, with many having indigenous populations of over fifty percent. These include Bochil, Sitalá, Pantepec, Simojovel to those with over ninety percent indigenous such as San Juan Cancuc, Huixtán, Tenejapa, Tila, Oxchuc, Tapalapa, Zinacantán, Mitontic, Ocotepec, Chamula, and Chalchihuitán. The most numerous indigenous communities are the Tzeltal and Tzotzil peoples, who number about 400,000 each, together accounting for about half of the state's indigenous population. The next most numerous are the Ch’ol with about 200,000 people and the Tojolabal and Zoques, who number about 50,000 each. The top 3 municipalities in Chiapas with indigenous language speakers 3 years of age and older are: Ocosingo (133,811), Chilon (96,567), and San Juan Chamula (69,475). These three municipalities accounted for 24.8% (299,853) of all indigenous language speakers 3 years or older in the state of Chiapas, out of a total of 1,209,057 indigenous language speakers 3 years or older.
Indigenous peoples of Mexico
In the second article of its Constitution, Mexico is defined as a "pluricultural" nation in recognition of the diverse ethnic groups that constitute it and where the indigenous peoples are the original foundation.
Nahuas
The Mexican government does not categorize its citizens by ethnicity, but only by language. Statistical information recorded about the Nahua deals only with speakers of the Nahuatl language, although unknown numbers of people of Nahua ethnicity have abandoned the language and now speak only Spanish. Other Nahuas, though bilingual in Nahuatl and Spanish, seek to avoid widespread anti-indigenous discrimination by declining to self-identify as Nahua in INEGI's decennial census. Nor does the census count as indigenous children under 5 (estimated to be 11-12% of the indigenous population). An INI-Conepo report indicates the Mexican indigenous population is nearly 250% greater than that reported by INEGI.
Languages of Mexico
Due to the long history of marginalization of indigenous groups, most indigenous languages are endangered, with some languages expected to become extinct within years or decades, and others simply having populations that grow slower than the national average. According to the Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples (CDI) and National Institute of Indigenous Languages (INALI), while 10–14% of the population identifies as belonging to an indigenous group, around 6% speak an indigenous language.
United States
While estimating the original native population of North America at the time of European contact is difficult, an attempt was made in the early part of the twentieth century by James Mooney using historic records to estimate the indigenous population north of Mexico in 1600. In more recent years, Douglas H. Ubelaker of the Smithsonian Institution has updated these figures. While Ubelaker estimated that there was a population of 92,916 in the south Atlantic states and a population of 473,616 in the Gulf states, most academics regard the figure as too low. Anthropologist Henry F. Dobyns believed that the populations were much higher, suggestion 1,100,000 along the shores of the gulf of Mexico, 2,211,000 people living between Florida and Massachusetts, 5,250,000 in the Mississippi Valley and tributaries and 697,000 people in the Florida peninsula.
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
In contrast to what was the general rule in the rest of North America, the history of the colony of New Spain was one of racial intermingling ("mestizaje"). "Mestizos", which in Mexico designate people who do not identify culturally with any indigenous grouping, quickly came to account for a majority of the colony's population; but 6% of the Mexican population identify as speakers of one of the indigenous languages. The CDI identifies 62 indigenous groups in Mexico, each with a unique language.
Mexicans
The category of "indigena" (indigenous) in Mexico has been defined based on different criteria through 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 persons that speak an indigenous language, based on this criteria approximately 5.4% of the population is Indigenous. Nonetheless, activists for the rights of indigenous peoples have referred to the usage of this criteria for census purposes as "statistical genocide"
Indigenous peoples of Mexico
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Indigenismo in Mexico
In Patzcuaro, Michoacan the First National Congress of Indigenous People was held from October 7–10, 1975. It was preceded by 58 regional conferences held at the Indigenous Coordinating Centers to discuss the problems local indigenous communities were facing. From those regional conferences delegates were selected by the communities to represent them at the national conference. 56 delegations of about 15 delegates were present. There were over 2500 indigenous people in attendance including delegates and general participants. The original agenda of the conference specifically included the discussion of land reform and the integration of marginalized ethnic groups as well as generally attaining indigenous economic, social, and political rights. The governments hope was that the conference would give agency to indigenous communities to create their own vision of progress.
Indigenous peoples of Mexico
In the late twentieth century there has been a push for indigenous rights and a recognition of indigenous cultural identity. 
According to the constitutional reform of 2001, the following rights of indigenous peoples are recognized:
Mexico, Montour County, Pennsylvania
Mexico's population, according to the 2010 Census is 472, consisting of 235 males and 237 females. The population consists of 464 (98.3%) Whites, 6 (1.3%) Hispanics, 1 Asian (0.2%), and 1 Pacific Islander (0.2%). In 2009, the estimated median household income for Mexico was $58,227.
Mexicans
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) in order 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.