Día de Muertos

2026: November 1, 2026 — November 2, 2026

Mexico · regional community traditions

Día de Muertos is a Mexican celebration in which families welcome back and remember their dead with joy as well as grief.

Origin

It blends Indigenous Mesoamerican ways of honouring the dead with the Catholic All Saints' and All Souls' days. UNESCO listed Mexico's Indigenous festivity dedicated to the dead in 2008.

Where & who

Mexico and Mexican communities abroad; related customs in Guatemala and elsewhere.

How people celebrate

• Building an ofrenda (home altar) with photos, candles, marigolds, water, salt and the loved one's favourite foods.
• Cleaning and decorating graves; some families keep vigil at the cemetery overnight.
• Commonly 1 November for children who died and 2 November for adults, though customs vary by region.

How you can take part or learn

• Visit a public ofrenda at a museum, cultural centre or town square.
• Make a small remembrance space for your own loved ones; don't copy a family's private cemetery vigil without invitation.
• Catrina face-painting is common at public events; avoid treating it as a costume detached from remembrance.

Symbols

Cempasúchil (marigolds), papel picado, sugar skulls (calaveras), La Catrina (José Guadalupe Posada, early 1900s).

Food, music & art

Pan de muerto, tamales, mole, hot chocolate; literary calaveras (playful verses).