Peru. Information.
PERU (officially the Republic of Peru), is a country in western South America. 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. Area - 1 285 216 sq.km. Population - 30 475 144 (2013) Capital - Lima. The earliest evidences of human presence in Peruvian territory have been dated to approximately 9,000 years BCE. In the 15th century, the Incas emerged as a powerful state which, in the span of a century, formed the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. Andean societies were based on agriculture, using techniques such as irrigation and terracing; camelid husbandry and fishing were also important. In December 1532, a party of conquistadors led by Francisco Pizarro defeated and captured Inca Emperor Atahualpa. Ten years later, the Spanish Crown established the Viceroyalty of Peru, which included most of its South American colonies. Viceroy Francisco de Toledo reorganized the country in the 1570s, with silver mining as its main economic activity and Amerindian forced labor as its primary workforce. Since its independence in 1821, Peru's bustling center of commerce and political power has remained at Lima. In the early 19th century, while most of South America was 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 Jose de San Martin and Simon Bolivar. During the early years of the Republic, endemic struggles for power between military leaders caused political instability. Peru was defeated by Chile in the 1879–1883 War of the Pacific, ceding the provinces of Arica and Tarapaca in the treaties of Ancon and Lima. Internal struggles after the war were followed by a period of stability under the Civilista Party, which lasted until the onset of the authoritarian regime of Augusto B. Leguia. The Great Depression caused the downfall of Leguia, renewed political turmoil, and the emergence of the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA). The rivalry between this organization and a coalition of the elite and the military defined Peruvian politics for the following three decades. Currency : Nuevo sol (PEN).
