Officially REPUBLIC OF PERU, Spanish REP¨²BLICA DEL PER¨² country in South America. Except for the Lake Titicaca basin in the southeast, its borders lie in sparsely populated zones. The boundaries with Ecuador to the northwest, Bolivia to the southeast, and Chile to the south run across the high Andes, whereas the borders with Colombia to the northeast and Brazil to the east traverse lower ranges or tropical forests. Peru's land area of 496,225 square miles (1,285,216 square kilometres) is supplemented by territorial waters, reaching 200 miles (320 kilometres) into the Pacific, on the west, that are claimed by Peru.

Peru is essentially a tropical country, with its northern tip nearly touching the Equator. Despite its tropical location, a great diversity of climate, of way of life, and of economic activity is brought about by the extremes of altitude and by the southwest winds that sweep in across the cold Peru, or Humboldt, Current, which flows along its Pacific shoreline. The immense difficulties of travel posed by the Andes have long impeded national unity. Iquitos, on the upper Amazon, lies only about 600 miles northeast of Lima, the capital, but before the airplane travelers between the cities often chose a 7,000-mile trip via the Amazon, the Atlantic and Caribbean, the Isthmus of Panama, and the Pacific, rather than the shorter mountain route. The name Peru is derived from a Quechua Indian word implying land of abundance, a reference to the economic wealth produced by the highly organized Inca civilization that ruled the region for centuries. The nation's vast mineral, agricultural, and marine resources long have served as the economic foundation of the country.