Peru

Peru was the seat of the Inca empire, the largest state ever to rise in the Americas, and its stone citadel of Machu Picchu remains one of the world's most beloved ruins. The modern country spans three sharply different worlds: a narrow desert coast where the capital Lima sprawls beside the Pacific, the towering Andes that cradle ancient cities like Cusco, and the vast Amazon rainforest that covers the country's eastern half. With a deep Indigenous heritage and a celebrated cuisine, Peru is one of South America's cultural anchors.

The Andes dominate the center of the country, rising at Nevado Huascaran to 6,746 meters and feeding rivers that flow east toward the Amazon, whose headwaters lie in the Peruvian highlands. The coastal strip is one of the driest places on Earth, a desert broken by river valleys where irrigation has supported civilization for millennia. East of the mountains the land descends into the selva, the dense Amazonian lowland that makes up most of Peru's territory. The cold Humboldt Current offshore drives one of the richest fisheries in the world.

Peru was home to a succession of advanced cultures, from the Norte Chico and Moche to the Inca, before the Spanish conquest of the 1530s made it the heart of a vast colonial viceroyalty rich in silver. Independence came in 1821. The modern republic has weathered military rule, the violent Shining Path insurgency of the 1980s, and chronic political instability, yet it has grown into a significant mining economy and a tourism powerhouse drawing visitors to Cusco, Machu Picchu, and Lake Titicaca.

• South America
  A continent of the Andes, the Amazon, and dazzling extremes located in
• Bolivia
  The high heart of South America neighboring country
• Brazil
  South America's giant, from the Amazon to the Atlantic neighboring country
• Chile
  A ribbon of land between the Andes and the Pacific neighboring country
• Colombia
  Where the Andes meet two oceans neighboring country
• Ecuador
  The equator, the Andes, and the Galápagos neighboring country