Peru, country, South America, South American Political Geography

Related Category: South American Political Geography

Early History

Peru has been inhabited since at least the 9th millennium B.C. It was later the center of several developed cultures, including the ChavIn (see ChavIn de HuAntar), the Chimu, and the Nazca. In the 12th cent. A.D., the Quechua-speaking Inca settled around Cuzco, and in the mid-15th cent. they established by conquest a large, well-organized empire that included most of present-day Peru and Ecuador and parts of Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, and Colombia. Their fortress city of Machu Picchu is perhaps the most extraordinary ruin in the Americas. Around 1530 the empire was weakened by civil war initiated by Atahualpa and HuAscar, who had been designated as dual heirs by their father, Huayna Capac.