Inca EmpireThe Inca Empire (also known as the Incan Empire and the Inka Empire), called Tawantinsuyu by its subjects (Quechua for the "Realm of the Four Parts"), was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political, and military center of the empire was in the city of Cusco. The Inca civilization rose from the Peruvian highlands sometime in the early 13th century. The Spanish began the conquest of the Inca Empire in 1532 and by 1572, the last Inca state was fully conquered.
QuitoQuito (ˈkito; Kitu), officially San Francisco de Quito, is the capital of Ecuador, with an estimated population of 2.8 million in its metropolitan area. It is also the capital of the province of Pichincha. Quito is located in a valley on the eastern slopes of Pichincha, an active stratovolcano in the Andes, at an elevation of , making it the second-highest capital city in the world. Quito is the political and cultural center of Ecuador as the country's major governmental, administrative, and cultural institutions are located within the city.
PeruPeru (pəˈruː ; Perú peˈɾu; Quechua: Piruw pɪɾʊw; Piruw pɪɾʊw), 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 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.
MapucheThe Mapuche (mæˈpʊtʃi (Mapuche and Spanish: maˈputʃe)) are a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups who shared a common social, religious, and economic structure, as well as a common linguistic heritage as Mapudungun speakers. Their homelands once extended from Aconcagua Valley to Chiloé Archipelago and later spread eastward to Puelmapu, a land comprising part of the Argentine pampa and Patagonia.
Quechuan languagesQuechua (ˈkɛtʃuə, ˈkɛtʃwɑː; ˈketʃwa), usually called Runasimi ("people's language") in Quechuan languages, is an indigenous language family spoken by the Quechua peoples, primarily living in the Peruvian Andes. Derived from a common ancestral language, it is the most widely spoken pre-Columbian language family of the Americas, with an estimated 8–10 million speakers as of 2004. Approximately 25% (7.7 million) of Peruvians speak a Quechuan language. Quechua was the main language family of the Inca Empire.
