Today, Ecuador's population is ethnically mixed: 55 percent mestizo (mixed indigenous - Caucasian), 25 percent Indigenous (Indian),10 percent Caucasian, nine percent African, and one percent other. Years of oil exploration destroyed large sectors of the Amazonian rainforest ecosystem and displaced an indigenous people, the Huaroni, who made the rainforest their home and have now been pushed to the edge of extinction. In Otavalo, many Indians still speak their native Quichua language, despite years of colonization. Many vendors speak both Quichua and Spanish, and some even know a little English or French. But most Otavalenos speak Quichua most commonly at home, and is the first language of most Indigenous families.

Like much of South America, Ecuadorian culture blends the influences of Spanish colonialism with the resilient traditions of pre-Columbian peoples. Although the population was heavily concentrated in the Andes highlands region a few decades ago, today it is divided about equally between that area and the coast. Migration toward cities - particularly Quito and Quayaquil - in all regions has increased the urban population to more than 50 percent. A large percentage of this population is children.