[19] In addition to the indigenous population, Latin Americans include people with Old World ancestors who arrived since 1492.

Latin America has the largest diasporas of Spaniards, Portuguese, Africans, Italians, Lebanese and Japanese in the world.

The specific ethnic and/or racial composition varies from country to country and diaspora community to diaspora community: many have a predominance of mixed indigenous and European descent or mestizo, population; in others, Indigenous Amerindians are a majority; some are mostly inhabited by people of European ancestry; others are primarily mulatto.

The most important migratory destinations for Latin Americans are found in the United States, Spain, France, Canada, Italy and Japan.

Canada and the United States, despite having sizeable Romance-speaking communities, are almost never included in the definition, primarily for being predominantly English-speaking Anglosphere countries.

The ABC islands (Leeward Antilles), where the primary language is Papiamento, a Portuguese Creole, may or may not be considered part of Latin America.

The population of Latin America comprises a variety of ancestries, ethnic groups and races, making the region one of the most diverse in the world.

Spanish is the official language of most of the countries on the Latin American mainland, as well as in Puerto Rico (where it is co-official with English), Cuba and the Dominican Republic.

Indigenous languages are widely spoken in Peru, Guatemala, Bolivia and Paraguay, and, to a lesser degree, in Mexico, Chile and Ecuador.

Colombia recognizes all indigenous languages spoken within its territory as official, though fewer than 1% of its population are native speakers of these.

It is a French-based creole, that is the local language spoken among the natives of the Caribbean islands of Saint Lucia and Dominica and also in Martinique and Guadeloupe.

Indigenous religions and rituals are practiced in countries with large indigenous populations, especially Bolivia, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru, and Afro-Latin American religions such as Santería, Candomblé, Umbanda, and Macumba are practiced in countries with large Afro-Latin American populations, especially Cuba, Brazil, and Dominican Republic.

[78] Central Americans living abroad in 2005 were 3,314,300,[79] of which 1,128,701 were Salvadorans,[80] 685,713 were Guatemalans,[81] 683,520 were Nicaraguans,[82] 414,955 were Hondurans,[83] 215,240 were Panamanians[84] and 127,061 were Costa Rica.