The culture of Latin America is the formal or informal expression of the people of Latin America and includes both high culture (literature and high art) and popular culture (music, folk art, and dance), as well as religion and other customary practices. These are generally of Western origin, but have various degrees of Native American, African and Asian influence.

Definitions of Latin America vary. From a cultural perspective, Latin America generally refers to those parts of the Americas whose cultural, religious and linguistic heritage can be traced to the Latin culture of the late Roman Empire. This would include areas where Spanish, Portuguese, and various other Romance languages, which can trace their origin to the Vulgar Latin spoken in the late Roman Empire, are natively spoken. Such territories include almost all of Mexico, Central America and South America, with the exception of English or Dutch speaking territories. Culturally, it could also encompass the French derived culture in the Caribbean and North America, as it ultimately derives from Latin Roman influence as well. There is also an important Latin American cultural presence in the United States since the 16th century in areas such as California, Texas, and Florida, which were part of the Spanish Empire. More recently, in cities such as New York, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Miami.

The richness of Latin American culture is the product of many influences, including:

The population of Latin America is very diverse with many ethnic groups and different ancestries. Most of the Amerindian descendants are of mixed race ancestry.^{[citation needed]}

In the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries there was a flow of Spanish and Portuguese emigrants who left for Latin America. It was never a large movement of people, but over the long period of time it had a major impact on Latin American populations: the Portuguese left for Brazil and the Spaniards left for Central and South America. Of the European immigrants, men greatly outnumbered women and many married Natives. This resulted in a mixing of the Amerindians and Europeans and today their descendants are known as mestizos. Even Latin American criollos, of mainly European ancestry, usually have some Native ancestry. Today, mestizos make up the majority of Latin America's population.

Starting in the late 16th century, a large number of former African slaves were brought to Latin America, especially to Brazil and the Caribbean.^{[citation needed]} Nowadays, blacks make up the majority of the population in most Caribbean countries. Many of the former African slaves in Latin America mixed with the Europeans and their descendants (known as mulattoes) make up the majority of the population in some countries, such as the Dominican Republic, and large percentages in Brazil, Colombia, and Honduras. Mixes between the blacks and Amerindians also occurred, and their descendants are known as zambos. Many Latin American countries also have a substantial tri-racial population known as pardos, whose ancestry is a mix of Amerindians, Europeans and Africans.^{[citation needed]}

Large numbers of European immigrants arrived in Latin America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, most of them settling in the Southern Cone (Argentina, Uruguay, and southern Brazil).^{[citation needed]} Nowadays the Southern Cone has a majority of people of largely European descent and in all more than 80% of Latin America's European population, which is mostly descended from six groups of immigrants: Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, French, Germans, Jews (both Ashkenazi and Sephardic) and, to a lesser extent, Irish, Poles, Greeks, Croats, Russians, Welsh, Ukrainians, etc.^{[citation needed]}

In this same period, immigrants came from the Middle East and Asia, including Indians, Lebanese, Syrians, Armenians, and, more recently, Koreans, Chinese and Japanese, mainly to Brazil. These people only make up a small percentage of Latin America's population but they have communities in the major cities.