This volume represents the refereed proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Finite Fields and Applications (Fq6) held in the city of Oaxaca Mexico between 22-26 May 200l. The conference was hosted by the Departmento do Matermiticas of the U niversidad Aut6noma Metropolitana- Iztapalapa Nlexico. This event continued a series of biennial international conferences on Finite Fields and Applications following earlier meetings at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas (USA) in August 1991 and August 1993 the University of Glasgow (Scotland) in July 1995 the University of Waterloo (Canada) in August 1997 and at the University of Augsburg (Ger- many) in August 1999. The Organizing Committee of Fq6 consisted of Dieter Jungnickel (University of Augsburg Germany) Neal Koblitz (University of Washington USA) Alfred }. lenezes (University of Waterloo Canada) Gary Mullen (The Pennsylvania State University USA) Harald Niederreiter (Na- tional University of Singapore Singapore) Vera Pless (University of Illinois USA) Carlos Renteria (lPN Mexico). Henning Stichtenoth (Essen Univer- sity Germany). and Horacia Tapia-Recillas Chair (Universidad Aut6noma l vIetropolitan-Iztapalapa. Mexico). The program of the conference consisted of four full days and one half day of sessions with 7 invited plenary talks close to 60 contributed talks basic courses in finite fields. cryptography and coding theory and a series of lectures at local educational institutions. Finite fields have an inherently fascinating structure and they are im- portant tools in discrete mathematics.