Chilango

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title: "Chilango" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["culture-in-mexico-city", "ethnic-and-religious-slurs", "mexican-spanish", "spanish-words-and-phrases", "regional-nicknames", "pejorative-demonyms"] description: "Mexican slang demonym for residents of Mexico City" topic_path: "geography/mexico" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilango" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Mexican slang demonym for residents of Mexico City ::

Chilango () is a Mexican slang demonym for natives of Mexico City. The Royal Spanish Academy and the Mexican Academy of Language give the definition of the word as referring to something "belonging to Mexico City", in particular referring to people native to Mexico City.

History of the term

There are many theories on the origin of the word "chilango". One of them is that it derives from the Nahuatl word Ixachitlān, that actually refers to the whole of the American continent. The word "shilango" has also been documented to have been used in the Veracruz area to mean people from central Mexico, and coming from the Maya "xilaan" meaning curly or frizzy haired. Yet another theory is that it comes from the Nahuatl "chilan-co", meaning where the red ones are, and referring to the skin, reddened by the cold, and used to refer to Aztecs by the Nahua people in the Gulf of Mexico.

References

Notes

• Etymology of "chilango" (in Spanish)

References

1. [http://lema.rae.es/drae/?val=chilango Diccionario de la lengua española - Vigésima segunda edición]
2. "Academia Mexicana de la Lengua".
3. [http://www.letraslibres.com/revista/letrillas/chilango-como-gentilicio Letras Libres - "Chilango como gentilicio" por Gabriel Zaid], Letras Libres, 1999

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