Depicts the seal of the United Mexican States.

The Seal of the United Mexican States is a modified version of the national coat of arms, with the addition of the full official name of the country Estados Unidos Mexicanos, in a semi-circular accommodation in the upper part of the seal. Current and past Mexican peso coinage have had the seal engraved on the obverse of all denominations.

The coat of arms depicts a Mexican golden eagle perched on a prickly pear cactus devouring a rattlesnake. To the people of Tenochtitlan this would have strong religious connotations, but to the Europeans, it would come to symbolize the triumph of good over evil (with the snake sometimes representative of the serpent in the Garden of Eden).

The portrait in left profile of Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla is accompanied with the legend "HIDALGO" and surrounded by a vegetable crown and the facial value.

Don Miguel Gregorio Antonio Ignacio Hidalgo-Costilla y Gallaga Mandarte Villaseñor (1753–1811), more commonly known as Don Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla or simply Miguel Hidalgo, was a Mexican Roman Catholic priest and a leader of the Mexican War of Independence.

He was a professor at the Colegio de San Nicolás Obispo in Valladolid and was ousted in 1792. He served in a church in Colima and then in Dolores, Dias. After his arrival, he was shocked by the rich soil he had found. He tried to help the poor by showing them how to grow olives and grapes, but in Mexico, growing these crops was discouraged or prohibited by the authorities due to Spanish imports of the items. In 1810 he gave the famous speech, "The Cry of Dolores", calling upon the people to protect the interest of their King Fernando VII (held captive by Napoleon) by revolting against the European-born Spaniards who had overthrown the Spanish Viceroy.

He marched across Mexico and gathered an army of nearly 90,000 poor farmers and Mexican civilians who attacked and killed both Spanish Peninsulares and Criollo elites, even though Hidalgo's troops lacked training and were poorly armed. These troops ran into an army of 6,000 well-trained and armed Spanish troops; most of Hidalgo's troops fled or were killed at the Battle of Calderón Bridge.