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).

Depicts the eagle from the Teocalli of the Sacred War appears in the centre, with the microtext "TEOCALLI" above the eagle. On the right-hand side, the glyph of the moon appears as a latent image. The upper edge includes the legend 700 YEARS OF THE LUNAR FOUNDATION OF THE CITY OF MEXICO-TENOCHTITLAN. The denomination "$20" appears on the exergue. To the right of the exergue there is the year "2021" and, to the left of the exergue, the Mexican Mint mark "M°". There are security features including a “latent image” that can only be seen if the coin is tilted.

The Teocalli of the Sacred War (teocalli is Nahuatl for "temple;" Spanish: El Teocalli de la Guerra Sagrada) is the name given by archaeologist Alfonso Caso to a monolithic pre-Columbian miniature of an Aztec temple, thought by some to have served as a throne for Motecuhzoma II. The sculpture was first discovered in 1831 in the foundations of the National Palace of Mexico, but was not removed until the 1920s. It is now located in the Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City.

On the back of the sculpture is a depiction of an eagle on a prickly pear cactus (similar to the coat of arms of Mexico). The eagle, a representation of Huitzilopochtli, holds in its beak the glyph for war, atl-tlachinolli. Although part of the relief has eroded, the cactus appears to grow from a defeated Chalchiuhtlicue, goddess of lakes and streams.