Only five states concentrate more than 61.09 percent of the population that speaks indigenous languages
Yucatán, Oaxaca, Chiapas, Veracruz and Puebla concentrate 61.09 percent of the total indigenous-speaking population, according to INEGI data.
According to the United Nations (UN), there are currently approximately 476 million indigenous people living in 90 countries, who represent just over five percent of the world’s population.
However, they are among the most disadvantaged and vulnerable groups, being 15 percent of the poorest.
In Mexico, the most recent statistics from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (made in 2010) indicate that the population of 5 years of age or older who speaks an indigenous language amounts to more than six million people, of which 50.9 percent are women. and 49.1 percent men.
In addition, it is indicated that the groups that speak indigenous language are established mainly in the south, east and southeast of the national territory: Yucatán, Oaxaca, Chiapas, Veracruz and Puebla, entities that concentrate 61.09 percent of the total indigenous-speaking population.
On the occasion of the International Day of Indigenous Populations, which was celebrated on August 9, the researcher from the National School of Higher Studies, Morelia unit, of UNAM, Orlando Aragón Andrade, stressed that the conditions they face vary according to the contexts or regions.
In Canada, for example, indigenous people are owners of land with oil deposits, therefore, some of them are in the oil business; a situation that contrasts with all of Latin American, Asian or African ethnic groups.