Where is Peru in the World?

Peru is a South American country situated along the continent’s west coast. The length of Peru’s western border is shared with the Pacific ocean, whereas its northern, southeastern and eastern boundaries are shared with Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, and Ecuador. Peru claims a size of nearly five hundred thousand square miles, with Lima as its capital and largest city.

Geography

With its unique layout, tropical climate and borders shared along largely unpopulated regions, Peru bears a rich and varied topographical layout featuring stunning biodiversity. The country splays out in a north-south configuration nestled between ocean waters to one side and teeming tropical life on the other, lending Peru a uniquely eclectic suite of geographical features.

For all of its rich diversity, the geography of Peru can fairly be separated into three distinct sections to differentiate between the most significant impacts brought about by the considerable differences in Peru’s layout. The western region, sharing its border almost entirely with the Pacific coast, lays claim to a broad expanse of dull territory toward the northern end of the coast, giving way to a hilly area toward the central coast before succumbing to mountainous areas interspersed with deep, narrow valleys in the southern coastal regions.

True to its name, the central region, often called the Andean region or the Sierra claims a stretch of the Andean mountains and experiences regular disruptions like earthquakes as a result. The Andes stretch in Peru begins with lower elevations toward the north before rising in height as one moves toward the heart of central Peru, hosting a snowy mountainous region that attracts tourists and visitors from all over the world.

As one approaches the southernmost end of the Andes stretch Peru hosts, one finds that mountains give way to the tropical forests of the Amazon. Claiming more than sixty percent of Peru’s total land mass, the Amazon forests of Peru is a territory rich with jungle areas and rife with biodiversity. Peru’s section of forest is part of the broader region generally referred to as the Amazon Basin, which stretches far into neighboring countries Brazil and Colombia. Its topography is mostly made up of low and even plainlands and gently rising hilly areas.

Population

Though Peru is an immense landmass in sheer size, much of its more challenging geographical regions are less conducive to supporting urban life. Regardless, Peru provides a home to a stunning 31 million people, most of whom speak the country’s official language, Spanish.

Officially called the Republic of Peru, the country boasts a cultural and ethnic diversity as broad and varied as its geography, with its largest ethnic group, Mestizo, claiming only two-thirds of the population as a whole. The remaining third is comprised of a broad variety of groups, including but certainly not limited to Andean, Amerindian and small communities of Shipino, Asian.