Peru is the size of Spain, France and Germany combined, and almost none of the facts about Peru that matter make it onto postcards. It holds the world’s deepest canyons, the highest navigable lake, a desert with no recorded rainfall, and a potato archive of some 3,000 varieties. Here are thirty that change how you see the country — geography, history, culture and the practical ones that shape a trip. Part of our Peru travel guide.
In This Guide
Peru Facts: Geography and Extremes
1. Peru is the third-largest country in South America, after Brazil and Argentina. 2. Sixty percent of it is Amazon rainforest, a share most visitors never guess. 3. Colca Canyon is roughly twice the depth of the Grand Canyon, and neighbouring Cotahuasi is deeper still.
4. Lake Titicaca, at 12,550 feet, is the highest navigable lake in the world. 5. The Atacama edge in southern Peru includes places with no recorded rainfall in human history. 6. The country spans coast, high Andes and jungle within a few hundred miles, giving it 28 of the world’s 32 recognized climates.
Interesting Facts About Peru: History
7. Caral, on the coast north of Lima, is around 5,000 years old — contemporary with the Egyptian pyramids and the oldest known city in the Americas. 8. The Inca empire, by contrast, lasted barely a century before the Spanish arrival in 1532.
9. At its height it stretched some 2,500 miles across six modern countries. 10. It ran without the wheel, without iron and without writing as we define it. 11. Records were kept on quipus, knotted cord devices still only partly deciphered. 12. Machu Picchu was never found by the Spanish, which is why it survived — and it sits lower than Cusco, as our Machu Picchu elevation guide explains.
Peru Culture Facts: Language, People and Belief
13. Spanish, Quechua and Aymara are all official languages. 14. Roughly 13 percent of Peruvians speak Quechua, the language of the Inca, as their mother tongue. 15. Around 55 indigenous peoples are recognized nationally, most of them Amazonian.
16. The Inti Raymi festival each June reenacts the Inca sun ceremony in Cusco and fills the city. 17. The Virgen de la Candelaria in Puno is one of the largest festivals in South America. 18. Andean Catholicism is layered openly over older belief: offerings to Pachamama, the earth mother, are routine at the start of a journey.
Fun Facts About Peru: Food and Nature
19. Peru grows roughly 3,000 varieties of potato, and the International Potato Center in Lima keeps the global archive. 20. It also has some 55 varieties of corn, in colours from white to near-black. 21. Ceviche has its own national holiday, celebrated each June.
22. Peru is among the top three bird-watching countries on earth, with more than 1,800 species. 23. The Andean condor, with a wingspan over ten feet, is among the largest flying birds alive. 24. Alpacas and llamas are domesticated camelids — and their wild cousin, the vicuña, produces the most expensive natural fibre in the world. The kitchen that all this feeds is in our traditional Peruvian food guide.
Practical Facts That Shape a Trip
25. The currency is the sol, and cash still rules outside cities. 26. Cusco sits at 11,152 feet — high enough that arrival day plans should be empty. 27. The Andean seasons invert the coast: May to September is dry in the mountains and grey in Lima.
28. Machu Picchu entry runs on timed tickets with daily caps, so the date is the first thing to book. 29. Most Western passports enter visa-free for up to 90 days, per Peru Migraciones. 30. Tap water is not drinkable anywhere, including in Lima’s best neighbourhoods.
Peru Travel Package: 7-Day Unforgettable Lima, Cusco and Machu Picchu
The Facts That Change How You Plan
Three of the thirty do real work on an itinerary. The altitude of Cusco decides the order of your first days — the reasoning is in our Cusco elevation guide. The inverted seasons decide the month. And the timed-ticket system decides which date everything else bends around.
Get those three right and the rest of Peru is forgiving. Get them wrong and you spend the trip’s best day recovering in a hotel room.
Common Questions, Answered
What is Peru best known for?
Machu Picchu above all, then its food scene, the Amazon and the Andes, and the Nazca Lines. It is also the country that gave the world the potato.
What are three interesting facts about Peru?
It grows around 3,000 potato varieties, holds two canyons deeper than the Grand Canyon, and has three official languages: Spanish, Quechua and Aymara.
What language do they speak in Peru?
Spanish is the main language, with Quechua and Aymara also official. English is common in tourism and rare outside it.
Why is Peru famous for potatoes?
The potato was domesticated in the Andes thousands of years ago. Peru still holds the world’s genetic archive of the crop, with roughly 3,000 varieties grown.
How old is Machu Picchu?
It was built around 1450, in the middle of the fifteenth century, and abandoned roughly a hundred years later during the Spanish conquest.
Is Peru a big country?
Yes. It is the third largest in South America, comparable in size to Spain, France and Germany combined, and around 60 percent of it is Amazon.
Machu Picchu and Galapagos Tour: 10, 12 & 17-Day Itineraries
The Bottom Line on These Peru Facts
The facts worth carrying are the ones that shape decisions: Peru is bigger and more vertical than it looks, its seasons run backwards between coast and mountains, and its most famous sight runs on a booking calendar. The rest is context that makes the trip richer. When you are ready to turn it into dates, our Peru itinerary guide lays out the routes.
