The Zapotec 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 400,000 to 650,000 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 that had a system of writing.
Zapotec peoples
Palace of Mitla, capital of the Zapotec civilization between the 8th and 14th centuries.
Statue of La Tehuana Zapotec Woman adorning traditional Zapotec attire
Benito Juarez (1806-1872)
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 before the arrival of Europeans.
Oaxaca Amerindians painting by Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez
1896 photograph of an indigenous Mexican boy.
Mural by Diego Rivera in the National Palace of Mexico depicting the burning of Maya literature by the catholic church.
A 16th-century manuscript illustrating La Malinche and the contact between Spaniards and Aztecs.
