Mexico has changed rapidly during the 20th century. In many ways, contemporary life in its cities has become similar to that in neighboring United States and Europe. Most Mexican villagers follow the older way of life more than the city people do. More than 45% of the people of Mexico live in cities of over 50,000 inhabitants.

Large metropolitan areas include Mexico City, Guadalajara, Monterrey, and Puebla-Tlaxcala, while rural areas include small areas throughout Chiapas, Oaxaca, Guerrero, Sinaloa, Tamaulipas, Yucatán, Aguascalientes, Michoacán, and many more.

Language

Mexico is the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world. The overwhelming majority of Mexicans today speak Spanish, however, the government recognizes 62 indigenous Amerindian languages as national languages.

Some Spanish vocabulary in Mexico has roots in the country’s indigenous languages, which are spoken by approximately 6% of the population. Some indigenous Mexican words are common in English. For example, words such as tomato, chocolate, coyote, and avocado are Nahuatl in origin.

Religion

The Spanish arrival and colonization brought Roman Catholicism to the country, which became the main religion of Mexico, however, Mexico has “no official” religion, and the Constitution of 1917 and the anti-clerical laws imposed limitations on the church and sometimes codified state intrusion into church matters. The government does not provide any financial contributions to the church, and the church does not participate in public education.

The last census reported, by self-ascription, that 76.5% of the population is Christian. Roman Catholics are 89% of the total population, 47% percent of whom attend church services weekly. In absolute terms, Mexico has the world’s second largest number of Catholics after Brazil. According to the Government’s 2000 census, approximately 87 percent of respondents identified themselves as at least nominally Roman Catholic.

Other religious groups for which the 2000 census provided estimates included evangelicals, with 1.71 percent of the population; other Protestant evangelical groups, 2.79 percent; members of Jehovah’s Witnesses, 1.25 percent; “historical” Protestants, 0.71 percent; Seventh-day Adventists, 0.58 percent; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 0.25 percent; Jews, 0.05 percent; and other religions, 0.31 percent. Approximately 3.52 percent of respondents indicated “no religion”, and 0.86 percent did not specify a religion.

National Holidays

Mexicans celebrate their independence from Spain on September 16, and other holidays with colorful festivals known as “Fiestas”.

Many Mexican cities, towns and villages hold a yearly festival to commemorate their local patron saints. During these festivities, the people pray and burn candles to honor their saints in churches decorated with flowers and colorful utensils. They also hold large parades, fireworks, dance competitions, beauty pageant contest, party and buy refreshments in the market places and public squares. In the smaller towns and villages, soccer, and boxing are also celebrated during the festivities.

Other festivities include Día de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (“Guadalupe Day”), Las Posadas (“The Shelters”, celebrated December 16 to December 24), Noche Buena (“Holy Night”, celebrated on December 24), Navidad (“Christmas”, celebrated on December 25) and Año Nuevo (“New Years Day”, is celebrated December 31 to January 1).

“Guadalupe Day” is regarded by many Mexicans as the most important religious holiday of their country. It honours the Virgin of Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico, which is celebrated on December 12. In the last decade, all the celebrations happening from mid December to the beginning of January have been linked together in what has been called the Guadalupe-Reyes Marathon.

Piñatas are unique to Mexican celebrations. A pinata is made from papier-mache. It is created to look like popular people, animals, or fictional characters. Once made it is painted with bright colors and filled with candy or small toys. It is then hung from the ceiling. The children are blind folded and take turns hitting the piñata until it breaks open and the candy and small toys fall out. The children then gather the candy and small toys.