Peru

Peru; Spanish: Perú; Quechua: Piruw Republika; Aymara: Piruw Suyu, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. The name Peru is derived from a Quechua Indian word implying land of abundance, a reference to the economic wealth produced by the rich and highly organized Inca civilization that ruled the region for centuries.

It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the west by the Pacific Ocean. Peru is a megadiverse country with habitats ranging from the arid plains of the Pacific coastal region in the west to the peaks of the Andes mountains vertically extending from the north to the southeast of the country to the tropical Amazon Basin rainforest in the east with the Amazon river. At 1.28 million km2, Peru is the 19th largest country in the world and the third-largest in South America.

Peru is essentially a tropical country, with its northern tip nearly touching the Equator. Despite its tropical location, a great diversity of climate, of the way of life, and of economic activity is brought about by the extremes of elevation and by the southwest winds that sweep in across the cold Peru Current (or Humboldt Current), which flows along its Pacific shoreline. The immense difficulties of travel posed by the Andes have long impeded national unity. Iquitos, on the upper Amazon, lies only about 965 km northeast of Lima, the capital, but, before the airplane, travelers between the cities often chose an 11,250-km trip via the Amazon, the Atlantic and Caribbean, the Isthmus of Panama, and the Pacific, rather than the shorter mountain route.

Peruvian territory was home to several ancient cultures. Ranging from the Norte Chico civilization starting in 3500 BC, the oldest civilization in the Americas and one of the five cradles of civilization, to the Inca Empire, the largest stat battle of Ayacuchoe in pre-Columbian America, the territory now including Peru has one of the longest histories of a civilization of any country, tracing its heritage back to the 4th millennia BCE.

The Spanish Empire conquered the region in the 16th century and established a viceroyalty that encompassed most of its South American territories, with its capital in Lima. Peru formally proclaimed independence in 1821 and following the foreign military campaigns of José de San Martín and Simón Bolívar, and the decisive battle of Ayacucho, Peru completed its independence in 1824. In the ensuing years, the country enjoyed relative economic and political stability, which ended shortly before the War of the Pacific (1879-1884) with Chile.