148 Fun Facts About Mexico

Mexico co-hosted the 2026 FIFA World Cup with the United States and which other country?

Canada hosted for the first time, while Mexico became the first country to stage three men's World Cups; it only got the 1986 one because Colombia pulled out as host for economic reasons.

Which Mexican dip takes its name from āhuacatl, the Nahuatl word for its main ingredient?

Guacamole is mashed avocado with onion, chilli and lime juice, and the lime does more than season it: it slows the browning that starts once the cut fruit meets the air.

Which Mexican party piece traditionally has seven points, said to stand for the seven deadly sins?

Piñata: friars used the seven-pointed star as a lesson, its points the deadly sins and the blindfolded batter standing for the faith that overcomes them.

Which Maya city is home to El Castillo, the stepped pyramid voted one of the New Seven Wonders?

Chichén Itzá draws crowds at each equinox, when the afternoon sun throws a rippling shadow down El Castillo's staircase like a serpent sliding to the carved snake head at its base.

Which Mexican holiday sees families deck home altars with marigolds?

Día de los Muertos altars are strewn with cempasúchil marigolds for a reason: the bright petals and strong scent are believed to guide the souls from the cemetery back to the family home.

Which traditional Mexican drink is made by fermenting, not distilling, maguey sap?

Pulque, fermented from maguey sap, was sacred to the Aztecs and largely reserved for priests and nobles; after the conquest it became an everyday drink, until beer pushed it aside in the 1900s.

Which body of water forms the country's eastern maritime boundary along Tamaulipas, Veracruz and Tabasco?

The Gulf of Mexico hides Cantarell, the giant offshore oilfield named after the fisherman whose reports of oil slicks on the water led Pemex to find it in the 1970s.

Which meat is shaved from the rotating trompo for tacos al pastor, a dish descended from Lebanese shawarma?

Al pastor is marinated pork, though it descends from lamb shawarma brought by Lebanese immigrants; the name means 'shepherd style', from asado al pastor.

Which Mexican artist is famous for her self-portraits and unibrow?

Frida Kahlo took up painting while bedridden after a bus crash at 18, working at a special easel that let her paint lying down; she said she painted herself because she was so often alone.

Monterrey, Mexico's northern industrial powerhouse, is the capital of which state?

Nuevo León's capital, Monterrey, saw one brewery breed whole industries: Cuauhtémoc, founded in 1890, spawned a glassworks for its bottles, now the glass giant Vitro, and a factory for their caps.

What is the name of the traditional Mexican sauce made with chocolate and chili peppers?

Mole poblano, in one telling, was improvised for a visiting dignitary by convent nuns in Puebla, who ground together what they had: chillies, spices, nuts, stale bread and a little chocolate.

Which masked Mexican luchador starred in over 50 films and was buried wearing his mask in 1984?

El Santo guarded his identity for decades, then lifted his mask on a TV chat show in January 1984, the only time he showed his face in public; he died days later and was buried in it.

Until independence in 1821, Mexico was the heart of which colonial viceroyalty?

New Spain ended when Agustín de Iturbide, a royalist officer sent to crush the rebels, joined them instead and led their combined army into Mexico City in September 1821.

What are cenotes?

Cenotes are water-filled sinkholes formed where limestone collapses to expose the water below; thousands dot south-eastern Mexico, many strung in an arc along the rim of the buried Chicxulub impact crater.

Which Mexican muralist painted the famous Detroit Industry murals?

Diego Rivera, a committed Marxist, painted the Detroit Industry murals in 1932–33 with money from Edsel Ford, heir to the car empire whose assembly lines fill the walls.

What does Cinco de Mayo actually commemorate?

Cinco de Mayo marks the 1862 Battle of Puebla, where General Ignacio Zaragoza's army beat a larger French force on May 5; a year later France won a second battle there and took the capital. Independence Day is September 16.

What is a quinceañera?

A quinceañera is a 15th-birthday celebration marking a girl's passage to womanhood; in Mexico it often opens with a Mass, and at the party her father may swap her flat shoes for her first high heels.

Which country borders Mexico to the south?

Guatemala shares by far the longer of Mexico's two southern borders, partly traced by the Suchiate and Usumacinta rivers; an 1882 treaty fixed it after Guatemala gave up its claim to the Soconusco region.

What music features trumpets, violins and guitars played by musicians in wide-brimmed sombreros?

Mariachi arose in western Mexico by the 18th century as string music; the trumpet became a fixture only when the style was commercialised in the 1930s, and UNESCO inscribed mariachi as intangible heritage in 2011.

Which conquistador led the expedition that conquered the Aztec Empire?

Hernán Cortés took the Aztec capital in August 1521 with a force swollen by indigenous allies and helped by disease; he was later made 1st Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca.

What is the name of the active volcano near Mexico City that is the second-highest peak in Mexico?

Popocatépetl, roughly 5,400 m high, burst back into life in December 1994 after years of quiet, and its ash and gas have forced nearby towns to evacuate again and again since.

Which Mexican poet, later a Nobel laureate, wrote the 1950 essay collection The Labyrinth of Solitude?

Octavio Paz wrote The Labyrinth of Solitude while a diplomat in Paris; in 1968 he quit as ambassador to India in protest at his government's killing of student demonstrators.

What was the name of the Aztec capital built on an island in Lake Texcoco?

Tenochtitlan's founding date is uncertain: most historians accept 1325, but the official day, 13 March, appears in no early record and is a modern choice.

As of 2023, Mexico was the world's largest producer of which precious metal?

Silver: Mexico led the world's mining table in 2023, ahead of China and Peru, and its silver coins once travelled so widely that they were legal tender in the United States until 1857.

Who became the first Mexican nominated for the Best Actress Oscar, for a 2002 biopic she also produced?

Salma Hayek was so set on the role that she sought out the collector who administered the rights to her subject's art and won access to the paintings; her nomination was a first for a Mexican actress.

Which Mexican spirit, unlike mezcal, may be made only from the blue variety of its source plant?

Tequila must be made from blue Weber agave, whereas mezcal may use dozens of agave species; the spirit is named after the town of Tequila, whose red volcanic soils suit the blue plant.

Which sport is most popular in Mexico by both viewership and participation?

Football is Mexico's favourite sport, and its men's team gave fans their greatest day at Wembley in 2012, beating Brazil 2–1 in the Olympic final to become champions.

What animal is depicted on the Mexican coat of arms, sitting on a cactus while eating a snake?

The eagle comes from the Mexica founding legend: their god told the wandering people to build their city where they found one perched on a cactus, which they did on an islet in a lake.

The peninsula from Mexicali to Cabo San Lucas is divided into which two states?

Baja California and Baja California Sur were the 'lower' half of old California; the upper half, Alta California, went to the United States in 1848, and the southern state was only created in 1974.

Which priest is known as the 'Father of Mexican Independence' for his 1810 Grito de Dolores?

Miguel Hidalgo never saw independence: captured and shot in 1811, he was beheaded and his head hung on Guanajuato's granary for ten years, until the war he started was finally won.

What is the highest mountain in Mexico?

Pico de Orizaba, also called Citlaltépetl ('star mountain' in Nahuatl), rises 5,636 m on the Puebla–Veracruz border; it is North America's highest volcano and third-highest peak after Denali and Mount Logan.

Which endangered small cetacean is found only in the northern Gulf of California?

The vaquita, a porpoise only about 1.5 m long, is the world's most endangered marine mammal; it drowns as bycatch in illegal gillnets set for totoaba, a fish whose swim bladder fetches high prices in China.

Which Mexican president ruled over 30 years before the 1910 revolution overthrew him?

Porfirio Díaz held power from 1876 to 1911, the Porfiriato; after Madero's forces beat the Federal Army he resigned under the Treaty of Ciudad Juárez in May 1911 and died in Paris in 1915.

What Mexican dish is masa filled with meat or cheese and wrapped in a corn husk?

Tamales are masa steamed in a corn husk or banana leaf, a wrapper that made them the packed lunch of pre-Hispanic hunters, travellers and armies; the name comes from the Nahuatl tamalli.

What is the name of the ancient city near Mexico City known for its massive Pyramid of the Sun?

Teotihuacan was already in ruins when the Aztecs first saw it, centuries after its fall; they gave the abandoned city the name we use and revered it as the place where the gods made the universe.

The town that gives its name to Mexico's best-known agave spirit is in which state?

Jalisco holds the town and the red volcanic soils around it, and the law keeps the name local: the spirit may be made only there and in a few named districts of four other states.

What is the currency of Mexico?

Peso: the '$' sign most likely began as a scribe's shorthand for pesos, 'ps', in colonial account books, so the US dollar borrowed its symbol from the currency Mexico still uses.

Which revolutionary from Morelos led the peasant Liberation Army of the South in the fight for land reform?

Emiliano Zapata, born in Anenecuilco, Morelos, led the Liberation Army of the South and issued the 1911 Plan de Ayala demanding land for the villages; he was ambushed and killed in 1919.

The Copper Canyon railway El Chepe runs from Chihuahua to which Pacific-coast city?

Los Mochis, in Sinaloa, is the coastal end of El Chepe; a concession for the line was granted in 1880, but the canyons of the Sierra Madre were so hard to cross that it was not finished until 1961.

Which Mexican dog breed, usually hairless, takes its name from the Aztec god of fire and lightning?

The Xoloitzcuintli, or xolo, is named for Xolotl, the Aztec god of fire and lightning, plus itzcuintli, dog; it comes in hairless and coated varieties and was buried with owners to guide souls to the underworld.

Which European ruler used Juárez's 1861 debt moratorium as a pretext to install Maximilian as emperor?

Napoleon III kept French troops in Mexico after his two partners in the debt-collection expedition sailed home; once he withdrew them in 1866–67, Maximilian's empire collapsed and he was shot at Querétaro in June 1867.

Which UNESCO World Heritage Site in Mexico City is famed for its canals and chinampas, the so-called floating gardens?

Xochimilco's bright trajineras ply the canals between the chinampas, farm plots first built by the valley's peoples about a thousand years ago; UNESCO listed the system in 1987 to help save it.

Which Mexican celebration runs nine nights from December 16, ending on Christmas Eve?

Las Posadas ('the inns') run December 16–24, nine nights for Mary's nine-month pregnancy; the custom traces to 1586, when Friar Diego de Soria obtained papal permission for the misas de aguinaldo.

Which Mexican state holds nearly all of the country's border with Belize?

Quintana Roo meets Belize along the Río Hondo, a line agreed in 1893 when Mexico accepted British rule there in return for Britain's promise to stop arming the region's rebels.

What is the name of the ring-shaped bread eaten on January 6 in Mexico, with a tiny figurine hidden inside?

Rosca de Reyes is eaten on Día de Reyes, January 6; the hidden figurine represents the Christ Child, and whoever finds it must host a party on Candlemas, February 2.

The monarch butterfly overwintering reserve lies on the border of the State of Mexico and which other state?

Michoacán shares the reserve with the State of Mexico; scientists only found these winter roosts in 1975, though local people had long tied the butterflies' arrival to the maize harvest.

Which ancient jungle city in southern Mexico hid King Pakal's tomb inside its Temple of the Inscriptions?

Palenque kept its secret until 1952: archaeologist Alberto Ruz Lhuillier lifted a stone slab in the temple floor, cleared a rubble-filled stairway and reached Pakal's tomb, with its jade mask.

Which Puebla dish of stuffed poblanos in walnut sauce shows the flag's colours?

Chiles en nogada are said to have been first served by Puebla nuns to Agustín de Iturbide in 1821, just after he signed the treaty sealing independence; chile, sauce and pomegranate match the flag.

Which Mexican boxer won his first 87 professional fights before a 1993 draw with Pernell Whitaker?

Julio César Chávez's most famous win came in 1990, when he stopped Meldrick Taylor with two seconds left in a fight he was losing on the scorecards; his first defeat came against Frankie Randall in 1994.

A Mexican jumping bean jumps because it contains what?

The larva of a small moth lives inside and twitches when the pod warms up, rolling it towards shade before it can dry out; the 'bean' is a seed capsule of a spurge shrub, not a legume.

The Caesar salad was created in the 1920s at a restaurant in which Mexican border city?

Tijuana: Caesar Cardini's daughter said he improvised the salad there when a Fourth of July rush in 1924 emptied his kitchen, though his brother and several of his staff later claimed the idea.

Which US city faces Ciudad Juárez across the border, the two forming one huge binational metropolis?

El Paso and Ciudad Juárez sit on opposite banks of the Rio Grande, and the river's wandering course kept a strip of land between them in dispute for a century, until a 1963 treaty returned it to Mexico.

Mexico City is sinking, in places by tens of centimetres a year, mainly because of what?

Pumping out groundwater: the city stands on the soft clay of a drained lake, and as its aquifer is over-drawn the clay compacts, so the ground sinks and floods get harder to drain.

What sits atop the Great Pyramid of Cholula near Puebla, the world's largest pyramid by volume?

A Catholic church, Nuestra Señora de los Remedios, has crowned the summit since 1594; the pyramid beneath is so overgrown that it looks like a natural hill, yet Guinness rates it the largest ever built.

What did recluse Julián Santana Barrera hang all over his island in Mexico City's canals for decades?

Haunted dolls: Santana Barrera is said to have found a drowned girl in the canal and hung up a doll in her memory, then hundreds more over some fifty years; after he died in 2001 the island became a tourist stop.

Cuexcomate in Puebla, billed as 'the smallest volcano in the world', is really what?

Cuexcomate is an inactive geyser cone, a mound of mineral deposits whose shape convinced people it was a volcano; a spiral staircase now lets visitors climb down inside it.

Chapulines, a popular Oaxacan snack toasted with lime, garlic and chili, are what kind of creature?

Chapulines are grasshoppers, gathered from late spring to early autumn and toasted on a comal, the flat griddle of Mexican kitchens; in Oaxaca they are sold by the bag at sports events.

Mexican engineer Guillermo González Camarena patented an early field-sequential system in 1940 for what?

Colour television: González Camarena patented his system in Mexico in August 1940, and a similar field-sequential camera design later flew on NASA's Voyager probes, which sent back colour views of Jupiter in 1979.

What did chemist Luis Miramontes first synthesise at Syntex in Mexico City on 15 October 1951?

An oral contraceptive: Miramontes, a 26-year-old student, made norethisterone, the active ingredient of some of the first pills, yet his supervisor Carl Djerassi is the one remembered as 'father of the pill'.

Which Mexican ritual sends four men spinning down ropes from a tall pole while a fifth plays flute on top?

Danza de los Voladores: each of the four flyers circles the pole 13 times, 52 turns in all, matching the 52-year cycle of the Mesoamerican calendar; UNESCO listed the ritual in 2009.

Which vegetable do Oaxacan artisans carve into elaborate scenes every 23 December?

Radishes: Oaxaca's Noche de Rábanos on 23 December began when market farmers carved them to catch shoppers' eyes; oversized roots are now grown specially and carved into nativity scenes and figures.

Who became the first president of the First Mexican Republic in 1824?

Guadalupe Victoria was a nom de guerre: José Fernández y Félix renamed himself for the Virgin of Guadalupe and for victory, and he was the only president to finish his term in the republic's first three decades.

Benito Juárez, Mexico's first Indigenous president, belonged to which people?

Zapotec was Juárez's mother tongue: he herded sheep in a village where no Spanish was spoken until, at 12, he left for Oaxaca city, worked as a servant and got the schooling that led to law.

Which former Coca-Cola executive won Mexico's presidency in 2000, ending 71 years of rule by the PRI?

Vicente Fox joined Coca-Cola in the 1960s as a route supervisor driving a delivery truck and rose to run its Mexican business before turning to politics with the opposition PAN.

Which was Mexico's earliest major civilisation, the carvers of colossal stone heads?

The Olmec carved each colossal head from a single basalt boulder, and some were hauled 100 km or more from the mountains without pack animals, a feat of organisation.

Which UNAM-trained chemist became the first Mexican to win a science Nobel, sharing the 1995 chemistry prize for work on ozone?

Mario J. Molina showed with F. Sherwood Rowland that CFCs from spray cans and fridges were eating the ozone layer, a warning that led to the 1987 Montreal Protocol, the treaty that phased them out.

Which is the only Latin American country besides Brazil that is larger than Mexico?

Argentina, the world's eighth-largest country, beats 13th-placed Mexico on the map but not on people: Mexico's population of about 131 million is nearly three times Argentina's 47 million.

Which Mexican state contains the Lacandon Jungle and the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve?

Chiapas holds the Lacandon Jungle, the rainforest that became world news in 1994 when the EZLN rebels, whose movement was born in its settlements, fell back into it after seizing several towns.

Mexico's Gran Telescopio Milimétrico, high on an extinct volcano, helped capture the first image of what in 2019?

A black hole: the Mexican dish was one of the eight radio telescopes linked across the globe as the Event Horizon Telescope, which in 2019 published the first picture of the black hole in galaxy M87.

Which Mexican salamander, able to regrow limbs and parts of its brain, survives in the wild only in Mexico City's canals?

The axolotl is nearly extinct in the wild yet thrives in captivity: laboratories breed it to study how it regrows lost limbs, and its genome, ten times the size of ours, was sequenced in 2018.

Which Mexican magnate, who built his fortune on Telmex and América Móvil, topped the Forbes rich list from 2010 to 2013?

Carlos Slim made his fortune in the 1990 sell-off of Telmex, the state phone company: his group bought it and ran it as a near-monopoly for years, the springboard for his mobile empire across Latin America.

Which Mexican director won back-to-back Best Director Oscars for Birdman and The Revenant?

Alejandro González Iñárritu won with two technical dares: Birdman is staged to look like one unbroken take, and The Revenant was shot in remote wilds by natural light; only two directors had won back to back before.

Which former head of Mexico City's government was sworn in on 1 October 2024 as Mexico's first woman president?

Claudia Sheinbaum, a scientist with a doctorate in energy engineering, won by a landslide over another woman, Xóchitl Gálvez, so Mexico was set for its first female president whichever front-runner won.

Mexican horchata is usually made from which grain?

Mexican horchata swapped tiger nuts for rice, blended with cinnamon and sugar and sometimes milk, and is served as an agua fresca.

Which Mexico City stadium, where Maradona scored his 'Hand of God' goal, was the first to host two World Cup finals?

Estadio Azteca saw Pelé lift the trophy in 1970 and Maradona in 1986, with the 'Hand of God' and the 'Goal of the Century' both coming in one quarter-final; in 2026 it became the first stadium to stage a third World Cup.

What did pre-Hispanic Mesoamericans commonly use as money?

Cacao beans served as small change across Mesoamerica: a hundred reportedly bought a turkey hen, and they were worth enough for cheats to fake them with dough, wax or mud-filled shells.

The La Quebrada cliff divers plunge into a narrow sea inlet in which Mexican resort?

Acapulco's clavadistas have dived at La Quebrada since 1934; the inlet below is only a few metres deep, so each diver must time the leap to the wave that briefly deepens it.

Which Mexican became the first Latin American to win the Best Director Oscar, for Gravity?

Alfonso Cuarón won for Gravity in 2014 and again in 2019 for Roma, a film drawn from his own Mexico City childhood and the live-in housekeeper who helped raise him, which he also shot as cinematographer.

Which exiled Soviet revolutionary was assassinated in Mexico City in 1940?

Leon Trotsky had lived in Coyoacán since 1937; Stalinist agent Ramón Mercader struck him with an ice axe on 20 August 1940, three months after a machine-gun raid led by the muralist Siqueiros failed in May.

Which Mexican poet was nicknamed 'The Tenth Muse'?

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz entered a convent in 1669 largely so that she could keep studying, and her 1691 Respuesta a Sor Filotea defended women's right to an education.

Emperor Maximilian lived in, and the Niños Héroes died defending, which Mexico City landmark?

Chapultepec Castle housed Emperor Maximilian from 1864 to 1867; in 1847 six cadets died defending it against US troops, and one is said to have leapt from its heights wrapped in the flag to keep it from capture.

What is Mexico's largest body of fresh water?

Lake Chapala, on the Jalisco–Michoacán border, covers about 1,100 km² and is Mexico's largest freshwater lake; fed by the Río Lerma, it supplies much of Guadalajara's drinking water.

What do Mexicans call the river that Americans know as the Rio Grande?

Río Bravo, short for Río Bravo del Norte, became an international frontier in 1848, when the treaty ending the Mexican–American War fixed it as the southern boundary of Texas.

Which Mexican leader gave his own amputated leg a funeral with full military honours?

Antonio López de Santa Anna lost the leg to French cannon fire in 1838 and gave it a state funeral; when he fell from power in 1844, a mob dug it up and dragged it through the streets.

Which Mexican comedian, whom Charlie Chaplin called the best alive, won a Golden Globe for Around the World in 80 Days?

Cantinflas rambled so memorably that the language gained a verb, 'cantinflear'; he reached audiences abroad by co-starring with David Niven in Around the World in 80 Days.

Whose long jump in Mexico City's thin air at the 1968 Olympics broke the world record by 55 centimetres?

Bob Beamon leapt 8.90 m at 2,240 m above sea level, where thin air slows a jumper less; his record lasted almost 23 years, until Mike Powell broke it in 1991.

Each 15 September, Mexico's president rings a historic bell and shouts the Grito from the balcony of which building?

The National Palace balcony is where the president re-enacts the 1810 cry each year, rings the old parish bell brought from Dolores, calls out the heroes' names and ends with three shouts of '¡Viva México!'.

Which president nationalised Mexico's oil industry and founded Pemex in 1938?

Lázaro Cárdenas expropriated the foreign oil companies on 18 March 1938; crowds paraded for six hours in the capital, and a national collection, with gifts running from jewellery to chickens, helped pay the compensation.

Pancho Villa's 1916 cross-border raid, which triggered a US punitive expedition, hit which town?

Several hundred Villistas crossed the border by night and attacked Columbus, New Mexico, on 9 March 1916; General Pershing's punitive expedition then spent almost a year chasing Villa across northern Mexico without catching him.

The asteroid that carved the Chicxulub crater 66 million years ago was roughly how wide?

The impactor was roughly 10 kilometres wide; the crater it left lies buried under about a kilometre of younger rock and went unrecognised until geophysicists prospecting for oil mapped it in the late 1970s.

Nine days before Mexico signed away California in 1848, what had been discovered there?

Gold was found at Sutter's Mill on 24 January 1848, and the treaty handing California to the United States was signed on 2 February, before word of the strike had spread.

Why were most of the famous mummies of Guanajuato dug up in the first place?

Cemetery workers began exhuming unpaid niches in 1865 and found bodies naturally preserved with skin, hair and clothing intact; the practice lasted until 1958.

Which indigenous people of the Copper Canyon, also called the Tarahumara, are famed for long-distance running?

The Rarámuri withdrew into the high sierra and its canyons when colonists arrived in the 1500s; with their settlements scattered far apart, they developed a tradition of running enormous distances on foot.

In which Mexico City square did soldiers open fire on student protesters on 2 October 1968?

The Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Tlatelolco, named for the pre-Hispanic, colonial and modern buildings that meet there, saw the massacre ten days before the 1968 Olympics opened in the city.

Rodolfo Neri Vela, the first Mexican in space, asked NASA in 1985 to pack which food, now standard on its missions?

Tortillas make no crumbs to drift into the instruments, so after Neri Vela's 1985 flight on Atlantis NASA kept them on the menu, and astronauts still wrap their meals in them.

Alfonso García Robles won the 1982 Nobel Peace Prize for a treaty making Latin America what?

A nuclear-weapon-free zone: after the 1962 Cuban missile crisis brought warheads to the region's doorstep, García Robles steered the 1967 Treaty of Tlatelolco that banned them from Latin America.

Why can unprotected visitors survive only about ten minutes in Mexico's giant Cave of the Crystals?

Extreme heat and humidity: the air reaches 58 °C and is almost saturated, so sweat cannot cool the body; the same hot, mineral-rich water grew gypsum crystals over 11 metres long.

Which Mexican striker won five Pichichi top-scorer trophies in La Liga, celebrating goals with a somersault?

Hugo Sánchez turned a somersault after scoring in tribute to his sister, a gymnast; all 38 of his league goals for Real Madrid in 1989-90 were struck first time, with a single touch.

Which snack did maître d' Ignacio Anaya improvise in Piedras Negras for a group of US officers' wives?

Nachos take their name from Anaya himself, since Nacho is the common nickname for Ignacio. Asked what to call the dish, he suggested Nacho's Special.

Chicle, a tree latex well known to the Aztecs of ancient Mexico, was the traditional base of which modern product?

Chewing gum was made with chicle until the 1960s, when most makers switched to a cheaper synthetic base. Across Latin America, chicle is still an everyday word for gum.

Which farmyard bird, raised for meat and feathers, was first domesticated in central Mexico at least 2,000 years ago?

Turkey reached Europe only in the 16th century, shipped over from central Mexico. The main farm varieties raised today still descend from those birds.

Which Christmas plant native to Mexico is named after the first US minister sent there?

Poinsettia honours Joel Roberts Poinsett, credited with introducing the plant to the US in the 1820s. In Mexico it is called flor de nochebuena, the Christmas Eve flower.

Which Oscar-winning actress was born in Mexico City to Kenyan parents, who chose her first name to mark the place?

Lupita Nyong'o holds Mexican as well as Kenyan citizenship. Her father was a visiting lecturer in Mexico City when she was born, and her Oscar came for 12 Years a Slave.

Which country's 1917 Zimmermann Telegram offered to help Mexico win back Texas, New Mexico and Arizona?

Germany hoped Mexico would tie down American forces. British intelligence intercepted the telegram, and its release helped build support for the US declaration of war in April 1917.

Which kind of natural disaster struck Mexico City on 19 September in both 1985 and 2017?

An earthquake hit the capital on the same date 32 years apart. The 2017 shock came about two hours after a national drill held to mark the 1985 disaster.

Which flavouring comes from an orchid first cultivated by the Totonac people of Veracruz, on Mexico's eastern coast?

Vanilla came chiefly from Mexico until the mid-1800s. Then Edmond Albius, a 12-year-old enslaved boy on Réunion, found the orchid could be pollinated by hand, and farms spread worldwide.

Which animated film follows a guitar-loving 12-year-old from the fictional Mexican town of Santa Cecilia?

Coco is named not for its young hero but for his elderly great-grandmother. The film won Oscars for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song.

Which big cat, still found in Mexico's forests, gave its name to an elite order of Aztec warriors?

Jaguar warriors earned their suit and helmet by capturing four enemies in combat. The animal is the largest cat in the Americas, outsized only by the tiger and the lion.

Which Mexican-born guitarist played Woodstock in 1969 before his band's debut album had even been released?

Carlos Santana was born in Autlán de Navarro in 1947, and the Woodstock film made his band famous worldwide. Thirty years on, Supernatural won him eight Grammys.

Which folk song from Veracruz, traditionally danced at weddings, became a 1958 American hit for Ritchie Valens?

La Bamba comes from the son jarocho tradition of Veracruz. Los Lobos took it to number one in the US in 1987 with their cover for the Valens biopic of the same name.

Which Mexican food shares its name with a thick potato omelette that is a classic dish in Spain?

Tortilla comes from torta, 'cake', plus the diminutive ending -illa, so it means 'little cake'. In Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, the flatbread is called tlaxcalli.

Which chili pepper is named after the capital city of the Mexican state of Veracruz?

Jalapeño means 'from Xalapa', the Veracruz capital whose name is also spelled Jalapa. Smoke-dried, the same pepper is sold as chipotle.

Which Guadalajara-born director of Pan's Labyrinth won Best Director and Best Picture Oscars for The Shape of Water?

Guillermo del Toro won for a romance between a mute cleaner and a captured amphibian creature, a story inspired by Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Which Aztec emperor was ruling when the conquistadors arrived in 1519, and was killed the following year?

Moctezuma II died in 1520 in disputed circumstances: accounts differ on whether the invaders or his own people killed him. The empire fell the following year.

Which former mission near San Antonio did Mexican troops storm in March 1836 after a 13-day siege?

The Alamo became a rallying cry within weeks: Texian soldiers shouted 'Remember the Alamo!' as they routed the Mexican army in April 1836.

Which colour fills the stripe nearest the pole on Mexico's vertical tricolour flag, alongside white and red?

Green, white and red first flew together on the flag of the Army of the Three Guarantees, the combined force that secured independence.

On a traditional seven-pointed Mexican piñata, what is each of the seven points said to represent?

A deadly sin sits on each point in the Catholic reading of the piñata, with the sweets inside as temptation. The blindfold is said to represent faith.

Mexico has the world's second-largest Catholic population, about three-quarters of its people, behind which country?

Brazil is the only country with more Catholics than Mexico, where about 78% of people gave that as their religion in the 2020 census.

What is the official English name of Mexico, used in all three of the country's federal constitutions since 1824?

United Mexican States translates Estados Unidos Mexicanos. The official name has shifted whenever the form of government changed, but every federal constitution chose this one.

Which Aztec feathered-serpent god gave his name to a giant pterosaur, possibly the largest flying animal ever found?

Quetzalcoatl lives on in Quetzalcoatlus, a fossil pterosaur whose wingspan recent estimates put at 10 to 11 metres. The god's name means quetzal-feathered serpent.

Which walled pre-Hispanic port city stands on 12-metre cliffs above the sea on Mexico's Caribbean coast?

Tulum may once have been called Zama, City of Dawn, because it faces the sunrise. Its present name is a local word for wall.

Agua de Jamaica, a deep-red drink served chilled across Mexico, is brewed from the dried calyces of which flower?

Hibiscus for the drink is no Mexican native: the roselle species used was domesticated in Africa. Jamaica itself serves a spiced version at Christmas.

Which traditional Mexican game resembles bingo but uses a deck of 54 picture cards announced by a caller?

Lotería is also what the winner must shout. The caller, known as the singer, sometimes announces a card with a verse before naming it.

Which Mexican sitcom created by Chespirito follows a poor orphan boy who hides in a barrel at a tenement's entrance?

El Chavo del Ocho averaged 350 million Latin American viewers an episode at its 1970s peak. Chespirito, the show's creator, played the boy himself.

Which Mexican-born actor, raised in El Paso and Los Angeles, won two Oscars and starred as Zorba the Greek?

Anthony Quinn was the first Mexican-born performer to win an Academy Award, yet neither of his two Oscars was for Zorba the Greek, which brought him only a nomination.

Which Nahua woman, one of 20 enslaved women handed to the conquistadors in 1519, became their interpreter and adviser?

La Malinche remains a contested icon in Mexico: to some the embodiment of treachery, to others the quintessential victim or the symbolic mother of the nation.

Which flower, once grown in Mexico for its edible tubers, was declared the country's national flower in 1963?

Dahlia tubers flopped when Europeans tried to introduce them as a food crop, so the plant won over the continent's gardens instead.

Which brightly painted fantasy creatures did papier-mâché artist Pedro Linares first make after fever dreams in 1936?

Alebrijes take their name from the dream itself: Linares said a donkey with butterfly wings and other hybrid beasts were all shouting that one nonsense word.

Mexico City's vast central plaza is popularly known by which name, taken from the plinth of a monument never finished?

Zócalo simply means plinth: a planned independence column got no further than its base, which sat in the square for decades and lent it the nickname.

Which skeleton lady in an elaborate hat began as a printmaker's zinc etching satirising Mexico's upper-class women?

La Catrina started as a satirical print at the expense of the wealthy elite. A muralist later painted her full-length and turned her into a national symbol.

Which Mexican street food is an ear of maize on a stick, dressed with mayonnaise, grated cotija cheese and chili powder?

Elote comes from a Nahuatl word for tender cob. In Mexico the word covers any ear of corn, whether on the plant or off it.

Which Mexican stew starts from hominy in broth, usually with meat, and is topped with shredded lettuce or cabbage?

Pozole takes its name from the Nahuatl word pozolli. It can be prepared in many ways, but every variation keeps the base of cooked hominy.

Which Mexican sweet bread, similar to brioche, is baked with a crunchy striped sugar topping?

Concha means shell, after the seashell look of its striped topping. Its origins are uncertain, but many believe French bakers who settled in colonial Mexico introduced it.

Which Mexican bread company, fronted since 1945 by a little bear mascot, is considered the largest bakery in the world?

Grupo Bimbo sealed that position in 2011 by buying Sara Lee's North American fresh bakery business. Its bear was inspired by a drawing on a Christmas card.

Which Laura Esquivel novel follows Tita, a youngest daughter forbidden by family tradition ever to marry?

Like Water for Chocolate became a 1992 film, a ballet and a TV series. Tita's family rule says the youngest girl must stay unmarried and care for her mother until she dies.

Which technology reached the Americas when Lombard-born Juan Pablos set one up in Mexico in 1539?

A printing press run by Pablos made him the first documented printer in the Americas. The first known book published there, a manual of Christian doctrine, dates from the same year.

Which deal handed Mexican land south of the Gila River to the US in return for 10 million dollars?

Gadsden Purchase land gave American planners a flatter southern route for a transcontinental railroad. It now forms southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico.

Which 1838 conflict saw a French fleet blockade Mexican ports and capture the fortress of San Juan de Ulúa?

The Pastry War is named for a French pastry chef who said Mexican officers looted his shop near Mexico City and demanded over sixty times its worth. A British-brokered peace ended it in March 1839.

Which 24-tonne Aztec carving, unearthed in Mexico City in 1790, is popularly but wrongly called a calendar?

The Sun Stone is no working calendar: archaeologists think it more likely served as a ceremonial basin or an altar for gladiatorial sacrifice.

Which Aztec temple came to light in 1978 when electricity workers digging in Mexico City struck a huge carved monolith?

Templo Mayor was excavated from 1978 to 1982 as a result. The find showed the dismembered body of Coyolxauhqui, sister of the god Huitzilopochtli.

Which royalist officer switched sides, won independence under the Plan of Iguala and was crowned Mexico's emperor?

Agustín de Iturbide twice stopped supporters proclaiming him emperor before accepting the crown in 1822. Returning to Mexico in 1824, he was arrested and executed.

Which heir to one of Mexico's wealthiest families called for the 1910 revolution to begin at 6 pm on 20 November?

Francisco I. Madero won the presidency in 1911 but was deposed and assassinated in a coup in February 1913. The date he chose is now commemorated nationwide every year.

Which crimson dye, a major colonial export of Oaxaca, is made from dried insects brushed off cactus pads?

Cochineal still colours food and lipstick, listed on labels as carmine or E120. The insects make the pigment as an acid that deters predators.

Which people, hailed by the Aztecs as cultural predecessors, built Tula with its four-metre basalt warrior columns?

Toltec rulers held sway from Tula between about 950 and 1150. Their city was modest in size, though, beside the capitals that came before and after it.

Which Mexican muralist, who lost his left hand making fireworks, painted The Epic of American Civilization at Dartmouth?

José Clemente Orozco did his greatest work one-handed: the frescoes he painted for the Hospicio Cabañas are considered his masterpiece.

Which ancient city near Oaxaca stands on an artificially levelled mountaintop, with carved figures known as Danzantes?

Monte Albán's Danzantes are not dancers at all: the 300-plus carved figures may depict captured leaders of rival centres and villages.

Which dance, stepped around the brim of a sombrero and once banned as immoral, became Mexico's national dance?

Jarabe Tapatío won fame abroad after the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova added it to her permanent repertoire following a visit to Mexico in 1919.

Which Mexican volcano surged out of farmer Dionisio Pulido's cornfield in 1943 and kept erupting for nine years?

Parícutin buried two towns under lava, yet only three people were killed. Now dormant, it draws visitors to the hardened ruins it left behind.