A grab-bag of quick, shareable facts about Mexico and Baja — good conversation starters, and a taste of just how much history is packed into everyday life here. See the rotating factoid card at the top of this page for one at a time, or read the full list below.
- Mexican vanilla is considered among the best in the world — Veracruz produces most of it, and it's used in flavors from chocolate to ice cream worldwide.
- Chocolate originated in Mexico: the Olmec and later the Maya and Aztec were the first to cultivate cacao, originally drinking it unsweetened and spiced, not as a candy.
- Mexico City is sinking — built atop a drained lakebed (former Lake Texcoco) where the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan once stood, parts of the city sink several inches a year.
- The word "chocolate" comes from the Nahuatl word "xocolātl." Several other English words trace back to Nahuatl too, including tomato (tomatl), avocado (āhuacatl), and coyote (coyōtl).
- Mexico has 35 UNESCO World Heritage Sites — more than any other country in the Americas.
- The Spanish spoken in Mexico retains many Indigenous loanwords beyond food — including "chocolate," "cacahuate" (peanut), and place names across the country.
- Lucha libre wrestlers' masks are treated with real reverence — losing a mask in a "luchas de apuestas" (bet match) is considered one of the sport's most dramatic possible losses.
- Mexico is the world's largest producer of silver, and Taxco has been a major silver-mining and silversmithing town since colonial times.
- The Mexican flag's eagle-on-a-cactus-eating-a-serpent image comes from the Aztec founding legend of Tenochtitlan — the sign their god Huitzilopochtli told them to look for when choosing where to build their capital.
- Baja California is technically part of "Mexico" but was never conquered by the Aztec Empire — its Indigenous peoples (Kumeyaay, Paipai, Kiliwa, Cucapá) had a very different history from central Mexico until Spanish missions arrived in the 1700s.
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Stories and traditions of Baja