Peru

Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered to the north by Ecuador and Colombia, to the east by Brazil, to the southeast by Bolivia, to the south by Chile, and to the south and 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 extending from the north to the southeast of the country, to the tropical Amazon basin rainforest in the east with the Amazon River. Peru has a population of over 32 million, and its capital and largest city is Lima. At , Peru is the 19th largest country in the world, and the third largest in South America. Peruvian territory was home to several cultures during the ancient and medieval periods, and has one of the longest histories of civilization of any country, tracing its heritage back to the 10th millennium BCE Caral–Supe civilization, the earliest civilization in the Americas and considered one of the cradles of civilization. Notable succeeding cultures and civilizations include the Nazca culture, the Moche, Wari and Tiwanaku empires, the Kingdom of Cusco, and the Inca Empire, the largest known state in the pre-Columbian Americas.…

Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered to the north by Ecuador and Colombia, to the east by Brazil, to the southeast by Bolivia, to the south by Chile, and to the south and 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 extending from the north to the southeast of the country, to the tropical Amazon basin rainforest in the east with the Amazon River. Peru has a population of over 32 million, and its capital and largest city is Lima. At , Peru is the 19th largest country in the world, and the third largest in South America. Peruvian territory was home to several cultures during the ancient and medieval periods, and has one of the longest histories of civilization of any country, tracing its heritage back to the 10th millennium BCE Caral–Supe civilization, the earliest civilization in the Americas and considered one of the cradles of civilization. Notable succeeding cultures and civilizations include the Nazca culture, the Moche, Wari and Tiwanaku empires, the Kingdom of Cusco, and the Inca Empire, the largest known state in the pre-Columbian Americas. The Spanish Empire conquered the region in the 16th century and Charles V established a viceroyalty with the official name of the Kingdom of Peru that encompassed most of its South American territories, with its capital in Lima. Higher education started in the Americas with the official establishment of the National University of San Marcos in Lima in 1551. Peru formally proclaimed independence from Spain in 1821, and following the military campaigns of Bernardo O'Higgins, José de San Martín, and Simón Bolívar, as well as the decisive battle of Ayacucho, it completed its independence in 1824. In the ensuing years, the country first suffered from political instability until a period of relative economic and political stability began due to the exploitation of guano that ended with the War of the Pacific (1879–1884). Throughout the 20th century, Peru grappled with political and social instability, including the internal conflict between the state and guerrilla groups, interspersed with periods of economic growth. Implementation of shifted Peru towards neoliberal economics under the authoritarian rule of Alberto Fujimori and Vladimiro Montesinos in the 1990s, with the former's political ideology of Fujimorism leaving a lasting imprint on the country's governance that continues to the present day. The 2000s marked economic expansion and poverty reduction, but the subsequent decade revealed long-existing sociopolitical vulnerabilities, exacerbated by a political crisis instigated by Congress and the COVID-19 pandemic, precipitating the period of unrest beginning in 2022. The sovereign state of Peru is a representative democratic republic divided into 25 regions. Its main economic activities include mining, manufacturing, agriculture and fishing, along with other growing sectors such as telecommunications and biotechnology. The country forms part of The Pacific Pumas, a political and economic grouping of countries along Latin America's Pacific coast that share common trends of positive growth, stable macroeconomic foundations, improved governance and an openness to global integration. Peru ranks high in social freedom; it is an active member of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Pacific Alliance, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership and the World Trade Organization; it is regarded as a middle power. Peru's population includes Mestizos, Amerindians, White people, Afro-descedant people, and Asian people. The main spoken language is Spanish, although a significant number of Peruvians speak Quechuan languages, Aymara, or other Indigenous languages. This mixture of cultural traditions has resulted in a wide diversity of expressions in fields such as art, cuisine, literature, and music. Peru has recently gained international recognition for its vibrant gastronomy, blending Indigenous, Spanish, African, and Asian influences. Lima is now considered a global culinary capital, home to award-winning restaurants like Central and Maido.

Prehistory and Pre-Columbian Peru

pyramid in the arid Supe Valley The earliest evidences of human presence in Peruvian territory have been dated to approximately 12,500 BCE in the Huaca Prieta settlement. Andean societies were based on agriculture, using techniques such as irrigation and terracing; camelid husbandry and fishing were also important. Organization relied on reciprocity and redistribution because these societies had no notion of market or money. The oldest known complex society in Peru, the Caral-Supe civilization, flourished along the coast of the Pacific Ocean between 3,000 and 1,800 BCE. These early developments were followed by archaeological cultures that developed mostly around the coastal and Andean regions throughout Peru. The Cupisnique culture which flourished from around 1000 to 200 BCE along what is now Peru's Pacific coast was an example of early pre-Inca culture. earrings depicting warriors, made of turquoise and gold (1–800 CE) The Chavín culture that developed from 1500 to 300 BCE was probably more of a religious than a political phenomenon, with their religious center in Chavín de Huantar. After the decline of the Chavin culture around the beginning of the 1st century CE, a series of localized and specialized cultures rose and fell, both on the coast and in the highlands, during the next thousand years. On the coast, these included the civilizations of the Paracas, Nazca, Wari, and the more outstanding Chimu and Moche. The Moche, who reached their apogee in the first millennium CE, were renowned for their irrigation system which fertilized their arid terrain, their sophisticated ceramic pottery, their lofty buildings, and clever metalwork. The Chimu were the great city builders of pre-Inca civilization; as a loose confederation of walled cities scattered along the coast of northern Peru, the Chimu flourished from about 1140 to 1450. Their capital was at Chan Chan outside of modern-day Trujillo. In the highlands, both the Tiahuanaco culture, near Lake Titicaca in both Peru and Bolivia, and the Wari culture, near the present-day city of Ayacucho, developed large urban settlements and wide-ranging state systems between 500 and 1000 CE. , an iconic symbol of pre-Columbian Peru In the 15th century, the Incas emerged as a powerful state which, in the span of a century, formed the largest empire in the pre-Columbian Americas with their capital in Cusco. The Incas of Cusco originally represented one of the small and relatively minor ethnic groups, the Quechuas. Gradually, as early as the thirteenth century, they began to expand and incorporate their neighbors. Inca expansion was slow until about the middle of the fifteenth century, when the pace of conquest began to accelerate, particularly under the rule of the emperor Pachacuti. Under his rule and that of his son, Topa Inca Yupanqui, the Incas came to control most of the Andean region, with a population of 9 to 16 million inhabitants under their rule. Pachacuti also promulgated a comprehensive code of laws to govern his far-flung empire, while consolidating his absolute temporal and spiritual authority as the God of the Sun who ruled from a magnificently rebuilt Cusco. From 1438 to 1533, the Incas used a variety of methods, from conquest to peaceful assimilation, to incorporate a large portion of western South America, centered on the Andean mountain ranges, from southern Colombia to northern Chile, between the Pacific Ocean in the west and the Amazon rainforest in the east. The official language of the empire was Quechua, although hundreds of local languages and dialects were spoken. The Inca referred to their empire as which can be translated as "The Four Regions" or "The Four United Provinces." Many local forms of worship persisted in the empire, most of them concerning local sacred , but the Inca leadership encouraged the worship of Inti, the sun god and imposed its sovereignty above other cults such as that of Pachamama. The Incas considered their King, the Sapa Inca, to be the "child of the sun."

Conquest and colonial period

was the last Sapa Inca, executed by the Spaniards on 29 August 1533. Atahualpa (or Atahuallpa), the last Sapa Inca, became emperor when he defeated and executed his older half-brother Huáscar in a civil war sparked by the death of their father, Inca Huayna Capac. In December 1532, a party of conquistadors (supported by the Chankas, Huancas, Cañaris and Chachapoyas as Indian auxiliaries) led by Francisco Pizarro defeated and captured the Inca Emperor Atahualpa in the Battle of Cajamarca. After years of preliminary exploration and military conflicts, it was the first step in a long campaign that took decades of fighting but ended in Spanish victory and colonization of the region known as the Viceroyalty of Peru with its capital at Lima, which was then known as (The City of Kings). The conquest of Peru led to spin-off campaigns throughout the viceroyalty as well as expeditions towards the Amazon Basin as in the case of Spanish efforts to quell Amerindian resistance. The last Inca resistance was suppressed when the Spaniards annihilated the Neo-Inca State in Vilcabamba in 1572. The Indigenous population dramatically collapsed overwhelmingly due to epidemic diseases introduced by the Spanish as well as exploitation and socio-economic change. Viceroy Francisco de Toledo reorganized the country in the 1570s with gold and silver mining as its main economic activity and Amerindian forced labor as its primary workforce. With the discovery of the great silver and gold lodes at Potosí (present-day Bolivia) and Huancavelica, the viceroyalty flourished as an important provider of mineral resources. Peruvian bullion provided revenue for the Spanish Crown and fueled a complex trade network that extended as far as Europe and the Philippines. The commercial and population exchanges between Latin America and Asia undergone via the Manila Galleons transiting through Acapulco, had Callao at Peru as the furthest endpoint of the trade route in the Americas. In relation to this, Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera, governor of Panama was also responsible for settling Zamboanga City in the Philippines by employing Peruvian soldiers and colonists. African slaves were added to the labor population to expand the workforce. The expansion of a colonial administrative apparatus and bureaucracy paralleled the economic reorganization. With the conquest started the spread of Christianity in South America; most people were forcefully converted to Catholicism, with Spanish clerics believing like Puritan divines of English colonies later that the Native Peoples "had been corrupted by the Devil", who was working "through them to frustrate" their foundations. It only took a generation to convert the population. They built churches in every city and replaced some of the Inca temples with churches, such as the Coricancha in the city of Cusco. The church employed the Inquisition, making use of torture to ensure that newly converted Catholics did not stray to other religions or beliefs, and monastery schools, educating girls, especially of the Inca nobility and upper class, "until they were old enough either to profess [to become a nun] or to leave the monastery and assume the role ('estado') in the Christian society that their fathers planned to erect" in Peru. Peruvian Catholicism follows the syncretism found in many Latin American countries, in which religious native rituals have been integrated with Christian celebrations. In this endeavor, the church came to play an important role in the acculturation of the Natives, drawing them into the cultural orbit of the Spanish settlers. By the 18th century, declining silver production and economic diversification greatly diminished royal income. In response, the Crown enacted the Bourbon Reforms, a series of edicts that increased taxes and partitioned the Viceroyalty. The new laws provoked Túpac Amaru II's rebellion and other revolts, all of which were suppressed. The rebellion of Tupac Amaru became the most devastating to the Viceroyalty, being the largest revolt in the colonial Americas. Beginning in the Cusco region, it extended to modern-day Bolivia and Argentina, and cooperated with other uprisings such as those led by Tomás and Túpac Katari. The revolt would last from 1780 to 1783. As a result of these and other changes, the Spaniards and their creole successors came to monopolize control over the land, seizing many of the best lands abandoned by the massive native depopulation. However, the Spanish did not resist the Portuguese expansion of Brazil across the meridian. The Treaty of Tordesillas was rendered meaningless between 1580 and 1640 while Spain controlled Portugal. The need to ease communication and trade with Spain led to the split of the viceroyalty and the creation of new viceroyalties of New Granada and Rio de la Plata at the expense of the territories that formed the Viceroyalty of Peru; this reduced the power, prominence and importance of Lima as the viceroyal capital and shifted the lucrative Andean trade to Buenos Aires and Bogotá, while the fall of the mining and textile production accelerated the progressive decay of the Viceroyalty of Peru. Eventually, the viceroyalty would dissolve, as with much of the Spanish empire, when challenged by national independence movements at the beginning of the nineteenth century. These movements led to the formation of the majority of modern-day countries of South America in the territories that at one point or another had constituted the Viceroyalty of Peru. The conquest and colony brought a mix of cultures and ethnicities that did not exist before the Spanish conquered the Peruvian territory. Even though many of the Inca traditions were lost or diluted, new customs, traditions and knowledge were added, creating a rich mixed Peruvian culture. Two of the most important Indigenous rebellions against the Spanish were the Juan Santos Rebellion led by Juan Santos Atahualpa in 1742, and the largest of the two being the Rebellion of Túpac Amaru II in 1780 around the highlands near Cuzco and Bolivia. In 1780, direct trade between Manila, Philippines at Asia; and Callao, Peru; in South America, was officially established.

Independence

was decisive in ensuring Peruvian independence.|left In the early 19th century, while most South American nations were swept by wars of independence, Peru remained a royalist stronghold. As the elite vacillated between emancipation and loyalty to the Spanish monarchy, independence was achieved only after the occupation by military campaigns of José de San Martín and Simón Bolívar. The economic crises, the loss of power of Spain in Europe, the war of independence in North America, and Native uprisings all contributed to a favorable climate to the development of emancipation ideas among the Criollo population in South America. However, the Criollo oligarchy in Peru enjoyed privileges and remained loyal to the Spanish Crown. The liberation movement started in Argentina where autonomous juntas were created as a result of the loss of authority of the Spanish government over its colonies. After fighting for the independence of the Viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata, José de San Martín created the Army of the Andes and crossed the Andes in 21 days. Once in Chile, he joined forces with Chilean army General Bernardo O'Higgins and liberated the country in the battles of Chacabuco and Maipú in 1818. On 7 September 1820, a fleet of eight warships arrived in the port of Paracas under the command of General José de San Martín and Thomas Cochrane, who was serving in the Chilean Navy. Immediately on 26 October, they took control of the town of Pisco. San Martín settled in Huacho on 12 November, where he established his headquarters while Cochrane sailed north and blockaded the port of Callao in Lima. At the same time in the north, Guayaquil was occupied by rebel forces under the command of Gregorio Escobedo. Because Peru was the stronghold of the Spanish government in South America, San Martín's strategy to liberate Peru was to use diplomacy. He sent representatives to Lima urging the Viceroy that Peru be granted independence, however, all negotiations proved unsuccessful. . The Viceroy of Peru, Joaquín de la Pazuela, named José de la Serna commander-in-chief of the loyalist army to protect Lima from the threatened invasion by San Martín. On 29 January, de la Serna organized a coup against de la Pazuela, which was recognized by Spain and he was named Viceroy of Peru. This internal power struggle contributed to the success of the liberating army. To avoid a military confrontation, San Martín met with the newly appointed viceroy, José de la Serna, and proposed to create a constitutional monarchy. The proposal was turned down. De la Serna abandoned the city, and on 12 July 1821, San Martín occupied Lima and declared Peruvian independence on 28 July 1821. He created the first Peruvian flag. Upper Peru (present-day Bolivia) remained as a Spanish stronghold until the army of Simón Bolívar liberated it three years later. José de San Martín was then declared Protector of Peru. National identity was forged during this period, primarily. As Bolivarian projects for a Latin American Confederation floundered, a union with Bolivia proved ephemeral. Simón Bolívar launched his campaign from the north, liberating the Viceroyalty of New Granada in the Battles of Carabobo in 1821 and Pichincha a year later. In July 1822, Bolívar and San Martín gathered in the Guayaquil Conference. Bolívar was left in charge of fully liberating Peru while San Martín retired from politics after the first parliament was assembled. The newly founded Peruvian Congress named Bolívar dictator of Peru, giving him the power to organize the military. With the help of Antonio José de Sucre, they defeated the larger Spanish army in the Battle of Junín on 6 August 1824 and the decisive Battle of Ayacucho on 9 December of the same year, consolidating the independence of Peru and Upper Peru. Upper Peru was later established as Bolivia. During the early years of the Republic, endemic struggles for power between military leaders caused political instability.

19th century

Once independence was proclaimed, San Martín assumed military-political command of the free departments of Peru, under the title of Protector, according to a decree given on 3 August 1821. The works of the Protectorate contributed to the creation of the National Library (in favor of knowledge), the approval of the National Anthem, and the abolition of the mita (in favor of the indigenous people). On 27 December 1821, San Martín created three ministries: Ministry of State and Foreign Affairs, committing Juan García del Río; Ministry of War and Navy, to Bernardo de Monteagudo; and Ministry of Finance, to Hipólito Unanue. From the 1840s to the 1860s Peru enjoyed a period of stability under the presidency of Ramón Castilla, through increased state revenues from guano exports. In 1864, a Spanish expedition occupied the Chincha Islands (guano producers) and unleashed an international incident with great consequences in Peruvian internal politics, which led to a coup d'état against President Juan Antonio Pezet, Mariano's government. Peru, with the help of Bolivia, Chile and Ecuador, sent a declaration of war on Spain. After the battle of Callao on 2 May 1866, the Spanish Navy withdrew from Peru. The government of José Balta was lavished on infrastructure (i.e., the construction of the Central Railway), the first signs of excess governmental spending becoming apparent. By the 1870s the guano resources had been depleted, the country was heavily indebted, and political in-fighting was again on the rise. , during the War of the Pacific By 1859, some 41,000 Peruvians had died in the constant civil wars that had shaken the country since 1829¹. Thanks to the money from the sale of guano, Peru began to modernize—civil and military bureaucracy grew, indigenous people stopped paying tribute, enslaved people achieved their freedom, and migration policies for Germans, Austrians, Irish, and Italians began to pick up steam. On 5 April 1879, Chile declared war on Peru, unleashing the War of the Pacific, which lasted until 1884. The casus belli was the confrontation between Bolivia and Chile over a tax problem in which Peru was compromised by the Treaty of Defensive Alliance, signed with Bolivia in 1873. However, Peruvian historiography is unanimous in maintaining that the deep cause of this war was Chile's ambition to take over the nitrate and guano territories of southern Peru. In the first stage of the war, the Peruvian navy repelled the Chilean attack until 8 October 1879. That day, the naval combat of Angamos was fought, where the Chilean navy and its ships Cochrane, Blanco Encalada, Loa, and Covadonga cornered the monitor Huáscar, the main ship of the Peruvian navy commanded by Admiral AP Miguel Grau. He died in the fray, quickly becoming Peru's greatest hero. , painted by Juan Lepiani Almost five years of war ended in the loss of the department of Tarapacá and the provinces of Tacna and Arica in the Atacama region. Francisco Bolognesi and Miguel Grau are both renowned heroes of the war. Originally, Chile committed to a referendum for the cities of Arica and Tacna to be held years later, meant to self determine their national affiliation. However, Chile refused to apply the Treaty, and neither of the countries could determine the statutory framework. The War of the Pacific was the bloodiest war the country has fought in, and after the war an extraordinary effort of rebuilding began. The government started to initiate a number of social and economic reforms to recover from the damage of the war. Political stability was achieved only in the early 1900s.

Wildlife

, Peru's national bird Because of its varied geography and climate, Peru has a high biodiversity with 21,462 species of plants and animals reported as of 2003, 5,855 of them endemic, and is one of the megadiverse countries. Peru has over 1,800 species of birds (120 endemic), over 500 species of mammals, over 300 species of reptiles, and over 1,000 species of freshwater fishes. The hundreds of mammals include rare species like the puma, jaguar and spectacled bear. The birds of Peru produce large amounts of guano, an economically important export. The Pacific holds large quantities of sea bass, flounder, anchovies, tuna, crustaceans, and shellfish, and is home to many sharks, sperm whales, and whales. The invertebrate fauna is far less inventoried; at least beetles (Coleoptera) have been surveyed in the "Beetles of Peru" project, led by Caroline S. Chaboo, University of Nebraska, USA and this revealved more than 12,000 documented and many new species for Peru. Peru also has an equally diverse flora. The coastal deserts produce little more than cacti, apart from hilly fog oases and river valleys that contain unique plant life. The Highlands above the tree-line known as puna is home to bushes, cactus, drought-resistant plants such as ichu, and the largest species of bromeliad – the spectacular Puya raimondii. The cloud-forest slopes of the Andes sustain moss, orchids, and bromeliads, and the Amazon rainforest is known for its variety of trees and canopy plants. Peru had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 8.86/10, ranking it 14th globally out of 172 countries.

Government and politics

in Lima Peru is a unitary semi-presidential republic with a multi-party system. The country has maintained a liberal democratic system under its 1993 constitution, which replaced a constitution that leaned the government to a federation to authorize more power to the president. It is also a unitary republic, in which the central government holds the most power and can create administrative divisions. The Peruvian government is separated into three branches: Legislature: the bicameral Congress of Peru, consisting of a 130 member Chamber of Deputies (lower house) and a 60 member Senate (upper house); Executive: the president and the Council of Ministers, which in practice controls domestic legislation and serves as a Cabinet to the president, consisting of the prime minister and 18 ministers of the state; Judiciary: the Supreme Court of Peru, also known as the Royal Audencia of Lima, composed of 18 justices including a supreme justice, along with 28 superior courts, 195 trial courts, and 1,838 district courts. Under its constitution, the president of Peru is both head of state and government and is elected to a five-year term without immediate reelection. The president appoints ministers who oversee the 18 ministries of the state, including the prime minister, into the Cabinet. The constitution designates minimal authority to the prime minister, who presides over cabinet meetings in which ministers advise the president and acts as a spokesperson on behalf of the executive branch. The president is also able to pose questions of confidence to the Congress of Peru, and consequently order the dissolution of congress, done in 1992 by Alberto Fujimori and in 2019 by Martín Vizcarra. In the Chamber of Deputies, there are 130 members¹, from 25 administrative divisions, determined by respective population and elected to five-year terms. In the Senate, there are 60 members¹, elected from a national or regional electoral district. Bills are proposed by the executive and legislative powers and become law through a plurality vote in Congress. The judiciary is nominally independent, though political intervention into judicial matters has been common throughout history. The Congress of Peru can also pass a motion of no confidence, censure ministers, as well as initiate impeachments and convict executives. Due to broadly interpreted impeachment wording in the 1993 Constitution of Peru, the legislative branch can impeach the president without cause, effectively making the executive branch subject to Congress. In recent history, the legislative body has successfully removed multiple presidents; Alberto Fujimori resigned prior to removal in 2000, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski resigned in 2018, Martín Vizcarra was removed from office in 2020, Pedro Castillo was removed in 2022, Dina Boluarte was impeached and removed from office in 2025, and José Jerí was removed in 2026. Following a ruling in February 2023 by the Constitutional Court of Peru, whose members are elected by Congress, judicial oversight of the legislative body was also removed by the court, essentially giving Congress absolute control of Peru's government. In 2026, Congress returned to a bicameral legislature, replacing the previous unicameral body. The V-Dem Democracy Report described Peru undergoing legislative aggrandizement.

Elections

, seat of the Congress of Peru in Lima Peru's electoral system uses compulsory voting for citizens from the age of 18 to 70, including dual-citizens and Peruvians abroad. Members of the Chamber of Deputies are directly elected by constituents in respective districts through proportional voting. Members of the Senate are elected from either national or regional electoral districts. The president is elected in a general election, along with the vice president, through a majority in a two-round system. Elections are observed and organized by the National Jury of Elections, National Office of Electoral Processes, and the National Registry of Identification and Civil Status. Peru uses a multi-party system for congressional and general elections. Major groups that have formed governments, both on a federal and legislative level, are parties that have historically adopted economic liberalism, progressivism, right-wing populism (specifically Fujimorism), nationalism, and reformism. The last general election was the 2026 Peruvian general election.

Foreign relations

is located in Lima. Over recent decades, Peru's foreign relations has historically been dominated by close ties with the United States and Asia, particularly through the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the World Trade Organization, the Pacific Alliance, Mercosur, and the Organization of American States (OAS). Peru is an active member of several regional trade blocs and is one of the founding members of the Andean Community of Nations. It is also a member of international organizations such as the OAS and the United Nations. Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, a celebrated Peruvian diplomat, served as United Nations Secretary General from 1981 to 1991. Peru planned to be fully integrated into the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) by 2021, attributing its economic success and efforts to strengthen institutions as meeting factors to be a part of the OECD. Peru is a member of the World Trade Organization, and has pursued multiple major free trade agreements, most recently the Peru–United States Free Trade Agreement, the China–Peru Free Trade Agreement, the European Union Free Trade Agreement, free trade agreements with Japan, and many others. Peru maintains an integrated relationship with other South American nations, and is a member of various South American intergovernmental agreements, more recently the Organization of American States, Mercosur, the Andean Community of Nations, the Pacific Alliance, and the APEC. Peru has historically experienced stressed relations with Chile, including the Peru v Chile international court resolution and the Chilean-Peruvian maritime dispute, but the two countries have agreed to work in improving relations. Peru has participated in taking a leading role in addressing the crisis in Venezuela through the establishment of the Lima Group. Peru is the 99th most peaceful country in the world, according to the 2024 Global Peace Index.

Military

in the VRAEM in 2019 Peru has the fourth largest military in Latin America. Peru's armed forces the Armed Forces of Peru comprise the Peruvian Navy (MGP), the Peruvian Army (EP), and the Peruvian Air Force (FAP), in total numbering 392,660 personnel (including 120,660 regulars and 272,000 reservists) as of 2020. Their primary mission is to safeguard the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country. Their functions are separated by branch: The Peruvian Army is made up of the Chief of Staff, two Control Bodies, two Support Bodies, five Military Regions and six Command Rooms. The Peruvian Air Force was officially created on 20 May 1929, with the name of Peruvian Aviation Corps. Its main function is to serve as the country's air defense. It also participates in social support campaigns for hard-to-reach populations, organizes air bridges during disasters, and participates in international peace missions. Its four major air bases are located in the cities of Piura, Callao, Arequipa and Iquitos. The Peruvian Navy is in charge of the country's maritime, river, and lake defense. It is made up of 26,000 sailors. Personnel are divided into three levels: superior personnel, junior personnel and seafarers. The military is governed by both the commander in chief, Ministry of Defense, and Joint Command of the Armed Forces (CCFFAA). The CCFFAA has subordinates to the Operational Commands and Special Commands, with which it carries out the military operations that are required for the defense and the fulfillment of the tasks that the executive power provides. Conscription was abolished in 1999 and replaced by voluntary military service. The National Police of Peru is often classified as a part of the armed forces. However, it has a distinct organizational structure and a purely civilian mandate. Its training and operations, particularly over the past two decades as an anti-terrorist unit, have imbued it with distinctly military traits, leading to its portrayal as a de facto fourth military branch with substantial land, sea, and air capabilities, and a work force of around 140,000 individuals.The Peruvian armed forces report through the Ministry of Defense, while the National Police of Peru reports through the Ministry of Interior. Since the end of the crisis in Peru in 2000, the federal government has significantly reduced annual spending in defense. In the 2016–2017 budget, defense spending has constituted 1.1% of GDP ($2.3 billion), the second lowest spending relative to GDP in South America following Argentina. More recently, the Armed Forces of Peru have been used in civil defense. In 2020, Peru used its military personnel and even reservists to enforce the strict quarantine measures placed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Economy

Peru's economy is the 46th largest in the world (ranked by Purchasing Power Parity (PPP)). The World Bank classifies its income level as upper middle. Peru was, , one of the world's fastest-growing economies owing to an economic boom experienced since the 2000s. However, by 2026, following the conclusion of the commodity boom in 2014, Peru experienced a substantial deceleration in its per capita GDP growth. It has an above-average Human Development Index (HDI) of 0.794 (as of 2023), which has been steadily improving over the years. Historically, the country's economic performance has been tied to exports, which provide hard currency to finance imports and external debt payments. Although they have provided substantial revenue, self-sustained growth and a more egalitarian distribution of income have proven elusive. According to 2025 data from the INEI, 25.7% of Peru's total population lives in poverty, including 4.7% who live in extreme poverty. Driven primarily by rising transportation and fuel costs, annual inflation climbed from 2.21 percent in February 2026 to 3.91 percent by May. Consequently, projections place the full-year inflation rate for 2026 at 3.8 percent. In mid-2026, Peru's national unemployment rate declined to 4.7 percent. Building Peruvian economic policy has varied widely since the 20th century. The 1968–1975 government of Juan Velasco Alvarado introduced radical reforms, which included agrarian reform, the expropriation of foreign companies, the introduction of an economic planning system, and the creation of a large state-owned sector. These measures failed to achieve their objectives of income redistribution and the end of economic dependence on developed nations. Despite these results, most reforms were not reversed until the 1990s, when the liberalizing government of Alberto Fujimori ended price controls, protectionism, restrictions on foreign direct investment, and most state ownership of companies. The service sector accounts for the largest share of Peru's gross domestic product at approximately 51.3 percent, followed by the industrial sector—including dynamic mining and manufacturing activities—at 34.0 percent, and agriculture contributing 7.3 percent. Recent economic growth has been fueled by macroeconomic stability, improved terms of trade, and rising investment and consumption. Peru's main exports were copper, gold, zinc, textiles, and fish meal; its major trade partners were the United States, China, Brazil, and Chile. Informal workers represented, in 2019, 70% of the labour market according to the INEI. In 2016, almost three million children and adolescents worked in the informal sector.

Ethnic groups

Peru is a multiethnic nation formed by successive waves of different peoples over five centuries. Amerindians inhabited Peruvian territory for several millennia before the Spanish conquest in the 16th century; according to historian Noble David Cook, their population decreased from nearly 5–9 million in the 1520s to around 600,000 in 1620 mainly because of infectious diseases. The 2017 census for the first time included a question on ethnic self-identification. According to the results, 60.2% of the people identified themselves as mestizo, 22.3% identified themselves as Quechua, 5.9% identified themselves as white, 3.6% identified themselves as black, 2.4% identified themselves as Aymara, 2.3% identified themselves as other ethnic groups, and 3.3% did not declare their ethnicity. In the different stages of Peru's history, ethnic composition has varied, with a continuous decline in the Amerindian proportion, due to multiple socioeconomic and sociocultural factors, birth controls, high mortality rates, exclusion, among others. The country tends towards a slow generalized miscegenation of all ethnic segments that began from the beginning of the colonial period to the present day. Because the majority of the Peruvian population has become mestizo, some feel a superiority complex towards the natives of the mountains and the jungle, either because they do not pronounce a word properly, or simply because they do not know how to read a text well, leading to a kind of racism towards them. During the Viceroyalty of Peru, Spaniards and Africans arrived in large numbers, mixing widely with each other and with the native population, mainly on the coast (the mountains and the jungle maintained a very little mixed indigenous majority). After independence there was European immigration from Spain, Italy, England, France, and Germany, along with the Middle East. Peru freed its black slaves in 1854. Chinese and Japanese arrived in the 1850s as laborers following the end of slavery, and have since become a major influence in Peruvian society. The first Croatian immigrants came to Peru in 1573 from Dubrovnik. In recent decades, Peruvian emigration figures have shown a marked growth and currently more than 10% of Peruvians are residing outside the country. This migratory movement has been accentuated since the year 2000, the official figure of Peruvian emigrants is 3,505,511 from 1994 to 2024. This without considering the descendant population, and the illegal floating population that is essentially found in neighboring countries. With respect to the main countries of destination for Peruvian emigrants between 1994 and 2023, these were: the United States (30.4%), Spain (16.1%), Argentina (12.9%), Chile (11.6%), Italy (10.3%), Japan (3.6%) and Canada (1.9%). 75% of Peruvian emigrants are between 15 and 49 years old, with a slight majority of women. For the most part, Peruvian emigration is a labor migration. Throughout its history, Peru has received migrations from Europe (mainly Spain and Italy; and to a lesser extent from France, United Kingdom, and from other Central European countries and Southern), sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia (China and Japan). It currently receives a large number of Venezuelan immigrants, who are escaping the economic crisis that their country is suffering. From 2016, the flow of Venezuelans to Peru increased, going from 6,615 residents in that year to around 820,000 until mid-June 2019, being the most important migratory wave of the 21st century in the country. Peru is home to the second largest number of Venezuelan immigrants after Colombia.

Language

, headquarters of the Academia Peruana de la Lengua (APL) in Lima According to the Peruvian Constitution of 1993, Peru's official languages are Spanish and, in areas where they predominate, Quechua and other Indigenous languages. Spanish is spoken natively by 82.6% of the population, and coexists with several native languages, of which the most important is the Quechuan languages, spoken by 16.92% of the population, 1.7% Aymara and 0.8% speaking another native language. In the urban areas of the country, especially in the coastal region, monolingualism of Spanish predominates; while in many rural areas of the country, particularly in the Amazon, multilingual populations dominate. Spanish language is used by the government and is the mainstream language of the country, which is used by the media and in educational systems and commerce. Amerindians who live in the Andean highlands speak Quechua and Aymara and are ethnically distinct from the diverse Indigenous groups who live on the eastern side of the Andes and in the tropical lowlands adjacent to the Amazon basin. Peru's distinct geographical regions are mirrored in a language divide between the coast where Spanish is more predominant over the Amerindian languages, and the more diverse traditional Andean cultures of the mountains and highlands. The Indigenous populations east of the Andes speak various languages and dialects. Some of these groups still adhere to traditional Indigenous languages, while others have been almost completely assimilated into the Spanish language. There has been an increasing and organized effort to teach Quechua in public schools in the areas where Quechua is spoken. In the Peruvian Amazon, numerous Indigenous languages are spoken, including Asháninka, Bora, and Aguaruna.

Religion

Roman Catholicism has been the predominant faith in Peru for centuries, albeit religious practices have a high degree of syncretism with Indigenous traditions. Two of its universities, Pontifical Catholic University of Peru and Universidad Católica San Pablo, are among the country's five top universities. As of the 2017 census, 76% of the population over 12 years old described themselves as Catholic; 14.1% as Evangelical; 4.8% as Protestant, Jewish, Latter-day Saints, and Jehovah's Witnesses; and 5.1% as nonreligious. In 2025, naturalized Peruvian citizen Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost became Pope Leo XIV. Amerindian religious traditions continue to play a major role in the beliefs of Peruvians. Catholic festivities like Corpus Christi, Holy Week and Christmas sometimes blend with Amerindian traditions. Pre-Columbian Amerindian festivities remain widespread; Inti Raymi, an ancient Inca festival, is still celebrated, especially in rural communities. The majority of towns, cities, and villages have their own official church or cathedral and patron saint. The two saints of Peru are Rose of Lima, the first Saint of the Americas, and Martin de Porres. The largest cathedral in Peru is the Metropolitan Cathedral of Lima. Its construction began in 1535 by under Francisco Pizarro and was completed in 1797. Other notable churches and cathedrals are the Cusco Cathedral Basilica Cathedral of Arequipa and the Basilica of Santo Domingo.

Education

located in Lima, the oldest university in the Americas In Peru, education is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education, which is in charge of formulating, implementing and supervising the national education policy. According to the Political Constitution of Peru, education is compulsory and free in public schools for the initial, primary and secondary levels. It is also free in public universities for students who have satisfactory academic performance and pass the admission exams. Most of the schools in Peru are private and religious. Peru's literacy rate is estimated at 92.9% as of 2007; this rate is lower in rural areas (80.3%) than in urban areas (96.3%). Education is divided into different levels: Initial education corresponds to the period between zero and five years of age, and is in charge of cribs whose purpose is to provide children with the stimulation required for their comprehensive development and the gardens that offer technical-pedagogical activities. Primary education begins with the first cycle, made up of the first and second grades. The entry age for children is six years old. This level begins in the first grade and ends in the sixth grade of primary school. Secondary education consists of five years, from first to fifth year. Then comes higher education that can be technical, productive, technological or university. To enter universities it is essential to take an admission exam, although the difficulty of this depends on the requirements of the university. Peru is home to one of the oldest institutions of higher learning in the New World. The National University of San Marcos, founded on 12 May 1551, during the Viceroyalty of Peru, is the first officially established and the oldest continuously functioning university in the Americas. The University of San Marcos is known to be the best in Peru and among the best in South America.

Visual arts

Peruvian art has its origin in the Andean civilizations. These civilizations arose in the territory of modern Peru before the arrival of the Spanish. Peruvian art incorporated European elements after the Spanish conquest and continued to evolve throughout the centuries up to the modern day.

See also

Mass media in Peru Outline of Peru

References

Citations

Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1378860443 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.