Zapotec peoples

Zapotec country is threefold: the central valleys around Oaxaca city, the pine sierra to the north, and the hot isthmus of Tehuantepec, each with its own speech, dress and civic life. Mexico's 2020 census counted 490,845 speakers of Zapotec languages, among the country's largest Indigenous language communities.

Above the valleys stands Monte Albán, the mountaintop capital Zapotec rulers levelled and built from around 500 BC, one of Mesoamerica's earliest cities, with some of its earliest writing, and at Mitla the geometric stone friezes mark a sacred centre that met the Spanish invasion still living. The colonial centuries that followed never emptied the valleys of their language.

Zapotec present tense is famously civic: hundreds of Oaxacan municipalities govern by Indigenous customary systems, isthmus Zapotec culture carries one of Mexico's most celebrated literary and artistic traditions, and Zapotec migrants have made Los Angeles one of the language's great cities.

This is an introduction, the first layer. A full collection, like the Mapuche collection that opened this atlas, follows as research and review are completed for each people.