page_title: Nahuas
hierarchical_section_title: Nahuas
caption_attribution_description: Español: Niñas pertenecientes a la etnia Nahua del estado de Puebla, México ejecutan una danza tradicional, Puebla, Puebla, México.
context_page_description: The Nahuas are a group of the indigenous people of Mexico and El Salvador, historically also present in parts of Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. The Nahuas comprise the largest indigenous group in Mexico and second largest group in El Salvador. The Aztec and Toltec cultures were of Nahua ethnicity.
  Their Nahuan languages, or Nahuatl, consist of many dialects, several of which are mutually unintelligible. About 1.5 million Nahuas speak Nahuatl and another million speak only Spanish. Less than 1,000 native speakers of Nahuatl remain in El Salvador.
  It is suggested that the Nahua peoples originated in Aridoamerica, in regions of the present day northwestern Mexico. They split off from the other Uto-Aztecan speaking peoples and migrated into central Mexico around 500 CE. The Nahua then settled in and around the Basin of Mexico and spread out to become the dominant people in central Mexico. However, Nahuatl-speaking populations were present in smaller populations throughout Mesoamerica.
  No unified Nahua identity existed in the Pre-Columbian period, and people instead identified based on tribe and altepetl. The name Nahua derives from the name of the language.
context_section_description: The Nahuas (/ˈnɑːwɑːz/) are a group of the indigenous people of Mexico and El Salvador, historically also present in parts of Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. The Nahuas comprise the largest indigenous group in Mexico and second largest group in El Salvador. The Aztec and Toltec cultures were of Nahua ethnicity.
  Their Nahuan languages, or Nahuatl, consist of many dialects, several of which are mutually unintelligible. About 1.5 million Nahuas speak Nahuatl and another million speak only Spanish. Less than 1,000 native speakers of Nahuatl remain in El Salvador.
  It is suggested that the Nahua peoples originated in Aridoamerica, in regions of the present day northwestern Mexico. They split off from the other Uto-Aztecan speaking peoples and migrated into central Mexico around 500 CE. The Nahua then settled in and around the Basin of Mexico and spread out to become the dominant people in central Mexico. However, Nahuatl-speaking populations were present in smaller populations throughout Mesoamerica.
  No unified Nahua identity existed in the Pre-Columbian period, and people instead identified based on tribe and altepetl. The name Nahua derives from the name of the language. For these reasons, it may be useful to view the Nahua people as a collection of ethnicities speaking similar languages, rather than one monolithic group.
caption: Nahua children in traditional clothes
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