What country was home to the Inca Empire?

Peru was home to the Inca Empire, whose political and administrative center was Cusco in the Peruvian Andes.

The Inca state began as the small Kingdom of Cusco before expanding dramatically under Pachacuti, who became ruler around 1438. At its height, the empire—known in Quechua as Tawantinsuyu, or “Realm of the Four Parts”—stretched across much of western South America. It included present-day Peru as well as territories in Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Chile and Argentina, but Peru was its heartland and the country most closely associated with it.

The empire was famous for its mountain roads, terraced agriculture, state administration and monumental stonework. Machu Picchu, although not the empire’s capital, is one of its best-known surviving sites. A common mix-up is to treat the Inca Empire as covering only modern Peru; Peru was its core, while the imperial territory extended far beyond modern national borders.

Spanish forces led by Francisco Pizarro captured Atahualpa in 1532, and the last Inca resistance ended in 1572.