Peru

E

Health and Welfare

Although the government has made some progress in improving medical facilities, sanitation remains inadequate, and a cholera epidemic in 1991 killed more than 1,000 Peruvians and affected another 150,000. Life expectancy in Peru is 68.3 years for men and 72 years for women (2007). The infant mortality rate was 30 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2007, and in 2004 there were 857 people for every doctor. An estimated 6.3 per cent of total government expenditure was spent on health care in 1994.

F

Defence

All males aged 20 to 25 years are liable for two years’ service in the Peruvian military (selective conscription). The country’s armed forces in 2004 included an army of 40,000 members, a navy of 25,000, and an air force of 15,000.

G

International Organizations

Peru is a member of the United Nations (UN), the Organization of American States (OAS), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Andean Community, and the Latin American Integration Association (LAIA). The country is also an associate member of Mercosur.

VI

History

The earliest inhabitants of Peru were groups of hunter-gatherers who, moving southward from North America, had reached the area by at least 10,000 bc. There is also archaeological evidence from two sites (Quebrada Tacahuay and Quebrada Jaguay) suggesting a maritime culture existed in what is now southern Peru about 12,500 years ago, with the settlements being inhabited seasonally and used as bases for a primitive fishing industry. By about 2500 bc permanent settlements had been established along coastal Peru and, later, in the coastal valleys. A striking characteristic of these early village cultures is their mutual isolation. However, from about 900 bc a succession of unifying cultures developed, whose influence gave Peru intermittent and relative cultural uniformity. The first such culture was the Chavín (c. 900 bc to 200 bc), which spread from the northern Peruvian Andes to dominate lesser cultures on the coastal lowlands. Successors to the Chavín were the Moche, whose culture flourished from c. ad 1 to 750, and the Huari, who flourished from c. ad 650 to 800. Later came the Chimú, whose power reached its greatest extent in the 14th century and who were defeated by the Inca in about 1470.

A

Inca Empire

The Inca, sometimes called peoples of the sun, were originally a warlike tribe living in a semi-arid region of the southern sierra. From 1100 to 1300 the Inca moved north into the fertile Cuzco Valley. From there they overran the neighbouring lands. By 1500 the Inca empire stretched from the Pacific Ocean east to the sources of the Paraguay and Amazon rivers and from the region of modern Quito in Ecuador south to the Maule River in Chile. This vast empire was a theocracy ruled by an Inca, or emperor, who was worshipped as a divinity. Because the Inca realm contained extensive deposits of gold and silver, it became in the early 16th century a target of Spanish imperial ambitions in the New World.