Mexican banknotes are a guided tour of the country. Each one carries a historical figure on the front and a landscape or monument on the back — and since the current G series was issued between 2018 and 2021, most of those backs are ecosystems rather than buildings. Older notes still circulate alongside them, which is why you may be handed two completely different designs for the same value.
Where the paper money comes from. Hand-written card notes appeared around independence, when the economic crisis took copper coins out of circulation. Recognisable banknotes date from the Revolution — when each faction printed its own, with predictable chaos, until the constitutionalists won and imposed a single currency. In 1925 the Banco de México was given the exclusive right to issue them.
The current series. The 20 marks the consummation of independence, with the mangroves of Sian Ka'an on the reverse; it is being replaced by a coin. The 50 carries an axolotl and the chinampas of Xochimilco — a Mexico City note, and voted the best banknote in the world in 2021. The 100 shows Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and the monarch butterfly forests. The 200 pairs Hidalgo and Morelos with the Pinacate desert. The 500 has Benito Juárez and the grey whales of El Vizcaíno. The 1000 carries Madero, Carranza and Hermila Galindo, with the Calakmul jungle and a jaguar behind them.
The older notes you will still see. Monte Albán on the 20, the Morelia aqueduct on the 50, Tenochtitlan on the 100, Sor Juana's Hacienda Panoaya on the 200, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo on the 500, and the University of Guanajuato on the 1000.
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