State of South America, which borders to N. with Ecuador and Colombia, to E. with Brazil (state of Amazonas and Acre territory) and Bolivia, to S. with Chile, and is wet to O. from the Pacific Ocean.

Name. – The origin of the name Peru is uncertain, which was not known by the Indians, but was used only by the Spaniards, who applied it to all the lands they conquered south of Panama, deriving it, it seems, from the name of a small river (Birú or Pirú) flowing into the ocean at Punta Piñas at 7 ° 34 ′ N., that is, just south of the Bahía de San Miguel (Panama). It should be noted that in the royal coupon of 1529, with which Francisco Pizarro is granted the right to explore and populate the newly discovered lands, these are called with the name of Pirú.

Political and administrative order. – According to simplyyellowpages, Peru is a unitary republic, independent from Spain since 1821. Executive power rests with the president, who remains in office for 5 years; the legislative power in Congress, made up of the Senate (35 members) and the Chamber of Deputies (110 members). Senators and deputies are elected for 5 years. The president exercises executive power through a cabinet of 7 ministers (Interior, War, Navy and Aviation, Foreign Affairs, Justice and Education, Finance, Public Works).

Just under the ³ / ₄ of the surface of Peru they drain to the Atlantic through the Amazon River; only 330,000 sq km belong to the Pacific side, and 50,000 to the closed Titicaca basin. The orographic structure of the country means that the watershed between the two oceans runs very close to the coast, and therefore the rivers that descend to the Pacific are all short (none exceeds 400 km. In length) and very precipitous, descending rapidly. from the elevated areas where they originate. Some in the arid coastal area do not convey water to the mouth all year round, both due to the absorption carried out by the sandy shores, both for the strong evaporation, and for the subtractions caused by the irrigation works. They only matter for this, and also because their valleys facilitate the penetration of the Sierra for the communication routes: because, given the slope of their beds and the torrential regime (they have floods, often terrible, in the summer months, while from August to October, they usually convey very little water or even dry), there is none suitable for navigation. Among the most notable are the Lambayeque, which irrigates 40,000 hectares, the Jequetepeque, which irrigates 30,000, the Chicama, which irrigates 35,000, the Santa, one of the few perennials, the Rimac, which crosses the capital Lima (which the name), and the Río de Mages, the longest of the Peruvian rivers in the Pacific (360 km.), but of limited flow.

In Peru, the Amazon River has its two spring branches: the Marañón and the Ucayali; the first usually, and perhaps wrongly, considered as the main one, above all because it comes closest to the watershed between the two oceans, originates from Lake Lauricocha at N. di Cerro de Pasco, and is 1350 km long. After having traveled fast a narrow longitudinal valley directed from the SE. to the NW, which has already been mentioned, it turns towards the E. and through the famous Pongo de Manscriche, a 2 km long gorge. and at some point only 50 meters wide, it enters the plain, where it becomes very wide, slow and navigable. The Huallaga, its main tributary, flows parallel to it: in the highest part of the course, which is 760 km long on the whole, it drops by 3000 m. in just 200 km., with many rapids and cataracts; steam navigation can only go up it as far as Yurimaguas.

The Ucayali results from the union of the Apurimac, which originates from a small lake on the plateau and flows in a deep, narrow and wild valley, very sparsely populated, and Urubamba, which originates at the Passo de la Raya (this puts the Atlantic basin communicates with the closed Titicaca basin) and flows into a fairly wide valley, where there are remains of large Inca buildings (including those of the fortress of Ollantaytambo, in N. di Cuzco). The Ucayali, 1800 km long from the sources of the Apurimac, is a slow river (many meanders; it goes down only 150 m. Over 1000 km.), Rich in water (over 2000 mc. Per second) and widely navigable (steamboats can go up to the Pongo de Mainique on the Urubamba). The western part (4400 sq km) of the great Lake Titicaca belongs to Peru, located at 3812 meters above sea level and 8330 sq km wide, run by steam navigation services that connect the Mollendo-Arequipa-Puno railway to the Bolivian Guaqui-Viacha-La Paz. In the Sierra there are numerous other lake basins, mostly of glacial origin and not very large (some, like that of Junín, are the remnants of a larger lake).