During a 2019 survey, 72 percent of responding opinion leaders and journalist from Latin America said that music from Brazil was the most attractive music in Latin America. Argentina and Mexico ranked second, both with 62 percent. In 2020, music sales in Latin America were expected to generate 1.65 billion U.S. dollars in revenue.

During an online survey conducted in ** Latin American countries at the beginning of 2021, over ********* of respondents in most markets included Latin music among their favorite music genres. The exception was Brazil – the only Portuguese-speaking country in the region – where Latin music was the least popular of the * genres listed. In Mexico, pop music ranked first, mentioned by almost * out of 10 responding internet users. In 2020, Brazil and Mexico altogether accounted for ********** of the music industry revenue in Latin America.

Cuba holds the record of Latin American and Caribbean countries or territories with the most Olympic gold medals: 86, counting the two medals won in the 2024 Games in Paris. Cuba is also the nation in this region with the highest total number of medals, with 74 more than Brazil, which is the second country in the ranking. Since when are Latin American and Caribbean nations part of the Olympics? Latin America has been present since the beginning of the modern international Olympic games. According to the Chilean Olympic Committee, Luis Subercaseaux Errázuriz participated in the games that took place in Athens in 1896. However, the International Olympic Committee lists this participation as a non-starter, meaning that the athlete did not run the races. In the following edition of the Olympics, which was also held in Paris, five Latin American and Caribbean nations competed: Argentina, Cuba, Haiti, Mexico, and Peru. Which are the most successful sports for the region? Athletics and boxing are the most successful Olympic sports in the region. Counting only the top eight countries, Latin American and Caribbean nations have won 59 gold medals in athletics (with Jamaica alone accounting for 27) and 54 in boxing (with Cuba responsible for 42 of them). In Paris 2024, Dominica, Guatemala, and Saint Lucia won their first gold medals.

In 2024, Brazil and Mexico were expected to be the countries with the largest gross domestic product (GDP) in Latin America and the Caribbean. In that year, Brazil's GDP could reach an estimated value of 2.4 trillion U.S. dollars, whereas Mexico's amounted to almost two trillion U.S. dollars. GDP is the total value of all goods and services produced in a country in a given year. It measures the economic strength of a country and a positive change indicates economic growth.

Mexico was the most visited destination by international tourists in Latin America in 2023, surpassing ** million tourist arrivals in that year. In the second place, but far behind, was the Dominican Republic. A global tourism powerhouse By developing airport infrastructure and calibrating new direct flights, Mexico has set international tourism high on its priorities list. At the forefront of Mexico's spike in international tourism is the FONATUR, or Mexico's National Fund for Tourism Development. The tourism body worked in the expansion of Cancun's airport and other four key tourist airports in the country. Plus, Mexico City's airport added new international direct flights in the *****, resulting in being rated as the best internationally connected airport in Latin America in 2019. With this and other developments in this sector, the North American country managed to rank among the top 20 destinations in the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Ranking that year. South America's tourism leader Through its geographically diverse landscape and globally recognized wine industry, Argentina has grown its international tourism sector. The influx of foreign visitors to Argentina can in some way be attributed to the country's air-travel infrastructure. The national air carrier, Aerolineas Argentinas, was one of the top airline operating in Latin America in 2019. That same year, passenger traffic to Argentinian airports grew by **** percent. Though in April 2020, in the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the arrival of international air travel tourists to Argentina came to a complete halt, ensuing a similar fate of the global tourism industry.

Brazil ranked as the best country for startups in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2024, with a total score of **** points. Moreover, * out of the ** top cities for startups in the region were located in Brazil. Colombia, whose score was **** points, ranked second.

Argentina scored 562 out of a maximum of 800 points in the English Proficiency Index 2023. That was the highest score among all Latin American countries included in the survey. The Argentine capital, Buenos Aires, also received the highest English proficiency score among all the Latin American cities analyzed. Mexico and Haiti received the lowest scores in the region.

In 2024, Mexico ranked as the country with the second-best economic performance amongst the seven Latin American nations included in the ranking, with a index score of ***** in a scale from * to 100, only behind Puerto Rico. Venezuela obtained the worst score in this macro-economic evaluation of the domestic economy, at ***** index points.

In 2023, Mexico received nearly **** billion U.S. dollars worth of remittances, making it the Latin American country with the highest value of international deposits received that year. Guatemala ranked second, with remittances amounting to nearly ** billion dollars. In total, the value of remittances in Latin America and the Caribbean exceeded *** billion U.S. dollars in 2023.

According to an online survey fielded in 12 Latin American countries in early 2021, YouTube and Spotify were the most used music streaming services. There were more than *** million YouTube users in Latin America in 2020. In the second quarter of 2021, the region was home to over ** million Spotify monthly active users (MAUs).

As of September 2024, Brazil was home to approximately *** million users of Instagram. This is more than the rest of the Latin American top-five countries combined. Mexico had around ** million Instagram users, while Argentina, Colombia, and Chile had ***** million, ***** million, and ***** million users, respectively. Similarly, Brazil and Mexico also had the largest number of Facebook users in Latin America.

Based on land area, Brazil is the largest country in Latin America by far, with a total area of over 8.5 million square kilometers. Argentina follows with almost 2.8 million square kilometers. Cuba, whose surface area extends over almost 111,000 square kilometers, is the Caribbean country with the largest territory.

Brazil: a country with a lot to offer

Brazil's borders reach nearly half of the South American subcontinent, making it the fifth-largest country in the world and the third-largest country in the Western Hemisphere. Along with its landmass, Brazil also boasts the largest population and economy in the region. Although Brasília is the capital, the most significant portion of the country's population is concentrated along its coastline in the cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

South America: a region of extreme geographic variation

With the Andes mountain range in the West, the Amazon Rainforest in the East, the Equator in the North, and Cape Horn as the Southern-most continental tip, South America has some of the most diverse climatic and ecological terrains in the world. At its core, its biodiversity can largely be attributed to the Amazon, the world's largest tropical rainforest, and the Amazon river, the world's largest river. However, with this incredible wealth of ecology also comes great responsibility. In the past decade, roughly 80,000 square kilometers of the Brazilian Amazon were destroyed. And, as of late 2019, there were at least 1,000 threatened species in Brazil alone.

Mexico's domestic and international air travel connections awarded it the first place among the best connected countries in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2019. With an index score of approximately *** thousand points, the North American country surpassed Brazil, the second country with the best air transport linkages in the region.

As of May 2022, Brazil was the top Latin American exporter of soccer players. In total, more than 1.2 thousand Brazilian footballers had left their country to play in clubs around the globe. In 2021, the FIFA transfers from Brazil generated receipts for 293.2 million U.S. dollars.

In 2023, Puerto Rico and The Bahamas were the states with the highest gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in Latin America and the Caribbean. The average GDP generated per person in the Bahamas amounted to 34,749 U.S. dollars, whereas the average wealth created per capita in Puerto Rico was estimated at around 34,749 U.S. dollars. In that same year, this region's lowest GDP per capita was that of Haiti, at less than 1,693 U.S. dollars per person per year. The largest economies in Latin America GDP is the total value of all goods and services produced in a country in a year. It is an important indicator to measure the economic strength of a country and the average wealth of its population. By far, the two largest economies in the region are Brazil and Mexico, both registering GDPs three times bigger than the third place, Argentina. Nonetheless, they are the two most populated countries by a great margin.
Key economic indicators of Latin America Latin America emerges as an important region in the world economy, as of 2023, around 7.3 percent of the global GDP, a similar share to the Middle East. Nevertheless, the economic development of most of its countries has been heavily affected by other factors, such as corruption, inequality, inflation, or crime and violence. Countries such as Venezuela, Suriname, and Argentina are constantly ranking among the highest inflation rates in the world. While Jamaica, Ecuador, and Haiti rank as some of the most crime-ridden states.

In 2025, Trinidad and Tobago had the highest press freedom score among countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Caribbean nation scored ***** points on a scale from 1 to 100. Jamaica followed with a score of ***** points. The index presents an overview of the plurality and independence of the media and how safe and free it is for journalists to do their job, with lower scores indicating a worse situation for the press and higher scores a better one. Press freedom laggards in the LATAM region Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela, and Honduras had the worst results in the region in 2025 - their scores stood below ** points. Unsurprisingly, due to the political situation in these four countries, journalism there experiences high restrictions imposed by the governments in order to stifle access to information. In one country, private press is actually prohibited by constitution – for that reason Cuba has seen only the lowest press freedom scores year after year. Honduras, one of the lowest-ranked countries on the index, has been noted to see declining press freedom scores since the coup d’etat in 2009. All in all, it comes as no surprise that trust in mass media in Latin America keeps deteriorating. Dangers of being a journalist in Latin America Mexico is considered the most dangerous country for journalist as it ranks high in terms of number of deaths not only in the Latin America region, but also the highest in the world. In 2022, Mexico was found to be the deadliest country for journalists worldwide, with more than ** representatives of the press being killed that year. Although the number dropped to * killings in 2024, the country still regularly ranks among the riskiest for media professionals. Colombia follows in the regional ranking, yet its figures remain significantly lower than those reported in Mexico.

In 2024, it was estimated that approximately 662 million people lived in Latin America and the Caribbean. Brazil is the most populated country in the region, with an estimated 211.999 million inhabitants in that year, followed by Mexico with more than 130.861 million.

In 2024, Mexico was the country with the largest number of restaurants among 'Latin America's 50 Best', with 10 of such establishments featured in the ranking.

In 2021, Mexico was the Latin American country with the highest overall Global Health Security (GHS) Index score, with 57 points out of a total of 100. In comparison, the United States, the best-rated country worldwide, had a score of 75.9. The Global Health Security Index measures a country's readiness to prevent, detect and respond to biological threats.

According to the FIFA ranking of men’s national soccer teams published in December 2024, Argentina leads in Latin America and the Caribbean with approximately 1,867 points. The Brazilian squad followed with over 1,775 points. A soccer superpower The Brazilian national soccer team, also named La Seleção, is currently one the world’s best national football squads. In 2002, Brazil won its fifth FIFA World Cup title, which placed it as the most successful team in the history of this tournament. Because of its great success in this sport, this South American country has also become the main source of international transfers of male footballers worldwide, overlaying other major soccer markets like Argentina and France. Most expensive men’s football teams in the region At the beginning of 2025, Brazil was reported to be the Latin American and Caribbean men’s football team with the highest market value, with a combined squad market value of more than 920 million euros. Argentina recorded the second-highest figure out of the region, with approximately 0.8 billion euros.