María Mercedes is a Mexican telenovela produced by Valentín Pimstein for Televisa in 1992. It was the first of the "Marías" telenovela trilogy, being followed by Marimar and María la del Barrio. María Mercedes is a remake of the telenovela Rina, which in turn is based on the radionovela Enamorada by Inés Rodena.

A telenovela is a type of a television serial drama or soap opera produced primarily in Latin America. The word combines tele and novela. Similar drama genres around the world include diziler (Turkey), serial (India), teleserye (Philippines), lakorn (Thailand), teleromanzo (Italy), téléroman, K-drama, J-drama (Japan), C-drama (China) and sinetron (Indonesia).