Guatemalan ethnography

Flag of the four villages of Guatemala: Maya (white), Ladinos (black), Garifuna (yellow) and Xincas (red).

The ethnography of Guatemala is the product of the union between indigenous (mainly Mayan) and European (mainly Spanish) peoples, with minimal contributions from Africans and Asians.

2018 Census

According to the census carried out by the National Institute of Statistics of Guatemala in 2018, the respondents self-identified as shown in the following table.

Other sources

According to World Atlas, 42% of Guatemalans are mestizo, 40% indigenous (9% Quiché, 8% Kakchiquel, 8% Mam, 6% Kekchí and 9% from other groups) and 18% white.

For the Mexican anthropologist Francisco Lizcano, 53% of the population is indigenous, 42% mestizo, 4% white, 0.8% Asian, and 0.2% Garífuna.

In the 2016 Latinobarómetro survey, 45% of Guatemalans declared themselves indigenous, 32% mestizo, 17% white, 1% mulatto, 1% black, and 1% of another race.

Ethnic groups

Ladinos

Ladinos in Guatemala City.

The word ladino is derived from latino, and is used in Central America to refer to the mestizo or Hispanicized population. The term was created in colonial times to refer to to the Spanish-speaking caste that was not indigenous, but also did not belong to the Spanish and Creole elite. The Guatemalan government describes Ladinos as a heterogeneous population that speaks Spanish as its mother tongue, possessing Hispanic customs tinged with cultural borrowings indigenous, and who dress in the Western style. The ladinos are concentrated in the metropolitan area of Guatemala, the east, the coastal regions, the Petén and the departmental and municipal heads of the west.

In the 2018 Census, 56% of those surveyed recognized themselves as ladinos. By department, the ladino population was distributed as follows:

Department	% Ladino
Alta Verapaz	5.6
Baja Verapaz	39.6
Chimaltenango	21,4
Chiquimula	72.6
Progress	98.2
Escuintla	94.4
Guatemala	85.5
Huehuetenango	34.8
Izabal	70.4
Jalapa	60.5
Jutiapa	79.1
Petén	69.3
Quetzaltenango	48.7
Quiché	10.6
Retalhuleu	84.6
Sacatepéquez	58.9
San Marcos	69.0
Santa Rosa	83.2
I just...	3.3
Suchitepéquez	61,0
Totonicapán	1,8
Zacapa	97.4
GuatemalaGuatemala	56.0

Indigenous

Official statistics place Guatemala as the country with the second highest proportion of indigenous people in Latin America (after Bolivia), and as the third with the largest native population (behind Mexico and Peru). In the 2018 Census, 43 4% of those surveyed declared themselves indigenous, somewhat higher than the figures recorded in the censuses of 1981, 1994 and 2002 (when indigenous people were 41.9%, 42.8% and 41% of the population, respectively).

By departments, the indigenous population was distributed as follows:

Department	% Maya or xinca
Alta Verapaz	39,0
Baja Verapaz	60.0
Chimaltenango	78.2
Chiquimula	26.8
Progress	1.5
Escuintla	5.1
Guatemala	13.5
Huehuetenango	65.0
Izabal	28.2
Jalapa	38.9
Jutiapa	20.3
Petén	30.2
Quetzaltenango	50.9
Quiché	89.2
Retalhuleu	15,0
Sacatepéquez	40.2
San Marcos	30.8
Santa Rosa	16.1
I just...	96.4
Suchitepéquez	38.1
Totonicapán	98.0
Zacapa	2.0
GuatemalaGuatemala	43.4

Mayans

Rigoberta Menchú, Nobel Peace Prize (1992), of Mayan origin k'iche'.

The most numerous indigenous ethnic group are the Mayans, who correspond to 41.7% of the total population and 95.9% of the country's indigenous people. The Mayans descend from the advanced civilization that settled in Mesoamerica in the first millennium of the Christian era. At present, the languages of the Mayan trunk continue to be the mother tongue of 29.6% of the Guatemalan population. The Guatemalan government recognizes the existence of 22 subgroups within the Mayan ethnic group, which are shown below:

Xincas

In the 2018 Census, 264,167 people recognized themselves as Xincas, which corresponds to 1.8% of the total population. The Xincas are a relatively unknown group, whose language is in serious danger of extinction. Most of the Xincas live in the departments of Jalapa (31.8% of the population), Jutiapa (19.3%) and Santa Rosa (14.1%).

Afro-descendants

The first Africans were introduced as slave labor by the Spanish conquistadors. Most of them concentrated on the coasts and, due to their reduced number, ended up being assimilated by the Ladino majority.

Currently the largest Afro-descendant communities in Guatemala are the Garífunas and Creoles or English-speaking blacks. The latter arrived in the 19th century from Jamaica and other Caribbean countries to work in railway construction and the banana industry.

According to the 2018 Census, 0.3% of the Guatemalan population self-identified as Afro-descendant, Creole or Garífuna. The distribution by departments is shown in the following table:

Department	% Afrodescendant/creole or garifuna
Alta Verapaz	0.2
Baja Verapaz	0.3
Chimaltenango	0.3
Chiquimula	0.4
Progress	0.2
Escuintla	0.3
Guatemala	0.4
Huehuetenango	0.2
Izabal	1.1.
Jalapa	0.4
Jutiapa	0.4
Petén	0.3
Quetzaltenango	0.2
Quiché	0.2
Retalhuleu	0.3
Sacatepéquez	0.3
San Marcos	0.1
Santa Rosa	0.4
I just...	0.2
Suchitepéquez	0.8
Totonicapán	0.2
Zacapa	0.5
GuatemalaGuatemala	0.3

Garifuna

Garifunas in Livingston, Izabal.

The Garífunas descend from a group of black slaves who were shipwrecked on the island of San Vicente, and who, after mixing with the Arawak indigenous people of the area, were deported by the British to the island of Roatán, from where they dispersed throughout the Caribbean coasts of Honduras, Nicaragua, Belize, and Guatemala. A total of 19,529 people recognized themselves as Garífuna in 2018, more than 3,000 of them in the Caribbean region of Izabal (0.7% of the department's population).

Whites

The first Europeans to arrive in Guatemala were the Spanish, followed by the English, who entered the country due to the proximity of the colony of Belize.

During the colonial period, the Spanish established a caste system in which they and their descendants (criollos) occupied the top of the social pyramid. Shortly before independence, criollos were less than 5% of the Guatemalan population (indigenous people were 64% and mestizos 31%).

In the 19th century an attempt at Belgian colonization was carried out in the Izabal region. The government also he promoted the settlement of German farmers in Alta Verapaz, where they came to control the cultivation of coffee. According to the German embassy, 4,000 German citizens, plus several thousand descendants, live in Guatemala.

It is estimated that more than 10,000 Mennonites live in Guatemala.

Asians

The main Asian community in Guatemala is the Koreans, who number around 7,000 people, 90% of whom live in Guatemala City.

Chinese migration began in the late 19th century century, and there are an estimated 3,500 Chinese living in China today. country.

Genetic makeup

According to some studies, the average genetic makeup of Guatemalans is as follows:

Ethnic groups

Studies carried out on samples of different ethnic groups found the following genetic mix: