Peruvians

Peruvians (peruanos/peruanas) are the citizens of Peru. What is now Peru has been inhabited for several millennia by cultures such as the Caral before the Spanish conquest in the 16th century. Peruvian population decreased from an estimated 5–9 million in the 1520s to around 600,000 in 1620 mainly because of infectious diseases carried by the Spanish. Spaniards and Africans arrived in large numbers in 1532 under colonial rule, mixing widely with each other and with Native Peruvians. During the Republic, there has been a gradual immigration of European people (especially from Spain and Italy, and to a lesser extent from Germany, France, Croatia, and the British Isles). Chinese and Japanese arrived in large numbers at the end of the 19th century. With 31.2 million inhabitants according to the 2017 Census. Peru is the fifth most populous country in South America. Its demographic growth rate declined from 2.6% to 1.6% between 1950 and 2000, and its population is expected to reach approximately 46 - 51 million in 2050. As of 2017, 79.3% lived in urban areas and 20.7% in rural areas. Major cities include Lima, home to over 9.5 million people, Arequipa, Trujillo, Chiclayo, Piura, Iquitos, Huancayo, Cusco and Pucallpa, all of which reported more than 250,000 inhabitants. The largest expatriate Peruvian communities are in the United States, South America (Argentina, Chile, Venezuela and Brazil), Europe (Spain, Italy, France and the United Kingdom), Japan, Australia, and Canada. In the 2017 Census, those of age 12 and above were asked what ancestral origin they belong to, with 60% of Peruvians self-identifying as mestizos, 20% as Quechuas, 5% as European, 3% as Afro-Peruvian, 2% as Aymaras, 0.6% as Amazonians, and 0.1% as Asian. Large indigenous populations live in the southern Andes, with other large populations found on the southern and central coast due to massive internal labor migration from the Andes to coastal cities over the past four decades. Mestizos compose 40%- 60.2% of the total population.