Peru stretches from the desert coast of the Pacific, crossed by short river valleys, over the high Andes and the Altiplano around Lake Titicaca to the rainforests of the Amazon. Here people domesticated the potato, quinoa, cotton, the llama and the alpaca, and from Caral, the oldest known civilization of the Americas, to Chavín, Paracas, the Moche, the Nazca, Wari and Chimor, Andean societies built some of the great civilizations of the ancient world.

In the fifteenth century the Incas of Cusco built Tawantinsuyu, the largest empire of the pre-Columbian Americas. Francisco Pizarro captured Atahualpa at Cajamarca in 1532, and for almost three centuries Lima ruled a viceroyalty built on the silver of Potosí and the forced labour of the mit'a, shaken in 1780 by the rebellion of Túpac Amaru II. San Martín proclaimed independence in 1821, and Bolívar and Sucre secured it at Ayacucho in 1824.

The republic passed through the rule of military caudillos, the guano boom and defeat in the War of the Pacific, the Aristocratic Republic, Leguía's Oncenio and the reforming military government of General Velasco. Democracy returned in 1980 as the Shining Path began a war that cost about 69,000 lives. Alberto Fujimori dissolved Congress in 1992, and since 2000 Peru has combined economic growth with repeated political crises and a long succession of presidents.

Explore the ten ages below through selected events from the timeline.