The Zoque people live in Chiapas, Oaxaca, Tabasco, and nearby areas. Their languages are connected to the Mixe-Zoquean family, a major Indigenous language grouping of southern Mexico.

For citizenship learners, the Zoque are important because they help explain the Indigenous diversity of Chiapas and the surrounding region. They also show that southern Mexico includes many language families, not only the Maya and Oto-Manguean groups often mentioned in basic overviews.