To cope with housing demand in several Latin American countries, concrete housing has become a preferred choice because of the speed of construction and availability of materials in most parts of these countries. The construction system is highly developed, as it uses industrialized forms, a precise sequence of forming-casting-removal of forms, and a timely supply of ready mix concrete. A significant portion of concrete houses is one- and two-story high and has been constructed with reinforced concrete (RC) walls and slabs which may be solid, cast monolithically with walls, or made of precast panels. Due to the large wall-to-floor area ratio of these concrete wall structures, seismic response in terms of forces and displacements is relatively low. Therefore, 100-mm thick walls are made of concrete with strengths between 15 and 20 MPa. Also, in zones where the seismic demands are so small that structural design is controlled by vertical or wind loads, or by temperature effects on concrete, minimum shear wall reinforcement ratio prescribed by ACI 318-11 Building Code)0.25% for both vertical and horizontal reinforcementappears to be excessive for controlling diagonal tension cracking. Thus, web steel ratios smaller than the minimum ratio prescribed by ACI-318 are often used. Aimed at better understanding the seismic behavior of walls in concrete housing, an extensive experimental study was carried out. The experimental program included quasi-static (monotonic and reversed-cyclic) tests as well as shake table tests of 39 isolated walls. Wall properties were typical of low-rise housing in several Latin American countries. Variables studied were the height-to-length ratio (0.5, 1.0 and 2.0), solid walls and walls with openings, type of concrete (normalweight, lightweight, self-consolidating), web steel ratio (0.25%, 0.125% and 0%) and type of web shear reinforcement (mild-steel deformed bars and cold-drawn welded-wire mesh). Nominal concrete compressive strength was 15 MPa. Axial compressive stress was approximately 2% of nominal concrete compressive strength and was kept constant during the test. Web reinforcement was placed in a single layer at mid wall thickness and same amount of horizontal and vertical reinforcement was used. Walls were designed to fail in shear as it is the typical failure mode observed in concrete walls for low-rise housing. In this paper, the measured hysteresis curves of the 39 wall models are presented and discussed. The hysteresis curves and its envelopes were expressed in terms of the shear strength or shear stress, and lateral drift ratio. Envelopes of hysteresis loops were essential to define the shear strength and drift ratio associated to three limit states: cracking, peak strength and ultimate deformation capacity. The contribution of shear, flexural and sliding deformations to total lateral drift ratio is also assessed. In order to evaluate the effect of the height-to-length ratio, wall openings, type of concrete, web steel ratio and type of web shear reinforcement to the hysteretic behavior of concrete walls tested, the envelope of the hysteresis loops and the contribution of the three components of deformations to lateral drift ration are compared and discussed.