Indigenous peoples of Peru (), also known as Native Peruvians (), are a large number of ethnic groups who inhabit territory in present-day Peru. Indigenous cultures developed here for thousands of years before the arrival of the Spanish in 1532.
In 2025, 6,783,697 Peruvians identified themselves as Indigenous peoples and formed about 20.7% of the total population of Peru. At the time of the Spanish arrival, the Indigenous peoples of the rain forest of the Amazon basin to the east of the Andes were mostly semi-nomadic tribes; they subsisted on hunting, fishing, gathering and slash and burn agriculture. Those peoples living in the Andes and to the west were dominated by the Inca Empire, who had a complex, hierarchical civilization. It developed many cities, building major temples and monuments with techniques of highly skilled stone-masonry.
Many of the estimated 2000 nations and tribes present in 1500 died out as a consequence of the expansion and consolidation of the Inca Empire and its successor after 1533, the Spanish Empire. In the 21st century, the mixed-race mestizos are the largest component of the Peruvian population.
With the arrival of the Spanish, many Natives perished due to Eurasian infectious diseases among the foreigners, to which they had acquired no immunity.
All of the Peruvian Indigenous groups, such as the Urarina,Dean, Bartholomew. (2009) Urarina Society, Cosmology, and History in Peruvian Amazonia, Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida and even those who live isolated in the most remote areas of the Amazon rainforest, such as the Matsés, Matis, and Korubo, have changed their ways of life to some extent under the influence of European-Peruvian culture. They have adopted the use of firearms and other manufactured items, and trade goods, although they remain separated from mainstream Peruvian society. Many Indigenous groups work to uphold traditional cultural practices and identities.
Origins
Anthropological and genetic evidence indicates that most of the original population of the Americas descended from migrants from North Asia (Siberia) who entered North America across the Bering Strait in at least three separate waves. DNA analysis has shown that most of those resident in Peru in 1500 were descended from the first wave of Asian migrants, who are theorized, but not proven conclusively, to have crossed Beringia at the end of the last glacial period during the Upper Paleolithic, around 24,000 BCE. Migrants from that first wave are thought to have reached Peru in the 10th millennium BC, probably entering the Amazon basin from the northwest.
The Norte Chico civilization of Peru is the oldest known civilization in the Americas and one of the six sites where civilization, including the development of agriculture and government, separately originated in the ancient world. The sites, located north of Lima, developed a trade between coastal fisherman and cotton growers and built monumental pyramids around the 30th century BC.Grossman, Ron (23 December 2004). "Americas' cradle of civilization". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 9 October 2013.
During the pre-Columbian era, the peoples who dominated the territory now known as Peru spoke languages, such as: Quechua, Aymara, Jivaroan, Tsimané, Tallán, Culli, Quingnam, Muchik, and Puquina. The peoples had different social and organizational structures, and distinct languages and cultures.
Demographics
According to Peru's 2025 census, out of a 34,157,732 population, the Indigenous people in Peru represent about 20.7%, of those, 92.3% are Andean and 7.3% are Amazonian.
In the Amazonian region, there more than 65 ethnic groups classified into 16 language families.Wessendorf 158 After Brazil in South America and New Guinea in Oceania, Peru is believed to have the highest number of uncontacted tribes in the world." 'Uncontacted' Tribes Fled Peru Logging, Arrows Suggest", National Geographic News, 6 Oct 2008. There are around 25 uncontacted indigenous groups in Peru.
Indigenous population by department Rank Department Percent in 1940 Percent in 2025 Population in 2025 1 Puno 92.35% 94.17% 1,101,808 2 Apurímac 70.02% 87.70% 390,645 3 75.94% 86.24% 583,849 4 78.68% 81.62% 296,083 5 Cusco 71.73% 71.45% 925,478 6 63.46% 39.00% 300,881 7 52.17% 38.68% 140,551 8 55.83% 33.40% 389,033 9 46.16% 32.19% 57,685 10 included in Junin 32.18% 75,797 11 60.85% 30.34% 413,340 12 25.88% 27.64% 51,186 13 Amazonas20.37% 25.99% 117,764 14 Arequipa26.44% 24.62% 427,525 15 38.16% 17.54% 177,378 16 included in Loreto 16.68% 97,780 17 29.19% 9.87% 100,373 18 Lima15.30% N/A N/A Lima regionincluded in Lima 10.77% 104,168 Lima province included in Lima 8.62% 828,349 19 2.87% 7.36% 76,779 20 San Martín25.02% 4.04% 38,327 21 30.09% 3.10% 42,164 22 12.31% 1.70% 24,311 23 La Libertad 12.86% 0.68% 13,601 24 37.82% 0.38% 7,949 25 1.46% 0.36% 893Peru Total45.86%20.74%6,783,697Source: Peruvian census 1940 and Peruvian census 2025
After the Spanish conquest
After the arrival of Spanish soldiers in Peru,Dobyns, Henry F., Their Number Become Thinned: Native American Population Dynamics in Eastern North America (Native American Historic Demography Series), University of Tennessee Press, 1983 local people began dying in great number from Eurasian infectious diseases that were chronic among the foreigners. These spread by contact across the New World by Indigenous peoples along trading routes, often years ahead of direct contact with the invaders. As the natives had no natural immunity, they suffered high fatalities in epidemics of the new diseases.
Marriage
Women typically got married around 16 years old while men typically married when they were 20 years old. Before the Spanish Inquisition, Incas often engaged in trial marriages. Trial marriages typically lasted a few years and at the end of the trial, both the man and the woman in the relationship could decide to either pursue the relationship or return home. According to Powers, "Andean peoples had clearly understood, long and before the ride of the Inca state, that women’s work and men’s work were complementary and interdependent, that the group’s economic subsistence could not be attained in the absence of one or the other." Once married, women often stayed home to watch over children and livestock, collect food, cook, weave, etc. On the other hand, men often took on more physically taxing responsibilities.
Intermarriage From the earliest years, Spanish soldiers and colonists intermarried with the Indigenous women. The Spanish officers and elite married into the Inca elite, and other matches were made among other classes. A sizeable portion of the Peruvian population is mestizo, of Indigenous and European ancestry, speaking Spanish, generally Roman Catholic, and assimilated as the majority culture.
In the late 19th century, major planters in Peru, particularly in the northern plantations, and in Cuba, recruited thousands of mostly male Chinese immigrants as laborers, referred to as "coolies". Because of the demographics, in Peru these men married mostly non-Chinese women, many of them Indigenous Peruvians, during that period of a Chinese migration to Peru. In the late 20th and 21st centuries, many scholars have studied these unions and the cultures their descendants created.
The Chinese also had contact with Peruvian women in cities, where they formed relationships and sired mixed-race children. Typically the Indigenous women had come from Andean and coastal areas to work in the cities. Chinese men favored marriage with them over unions with African Peruvian women. Matchmakers sometimes arranged for mass communal marriages among a group of young Peruvian women and a new group of Chinese coolies. They were paid a deposit to recruit women from the Andean villages for such marriages.
In 1873 The New York Times reported on the Chinese coolies in Peru, describing their indentured labor as akin to slavery. It also reported that Peruvian women sought Chinese men as husbands, considering them to be a "catch" and a "model husband, hard-working, affectionate, faithful and obedient" and "handy to have in the house".
As is typical in times of demographic change, some Peruvians objected to such marriages on racial grounds. When native Peruvian women (cholas et natives, Indias, indígenas) and Chinese men had mixed children, the children were called injerto. As adults, injerto women were preferred by Chinese men as spouses, as they had shared ancestry.
According to Alfredo Sachettí, lower-class Peruvians, including some black and Amerindian women, established sexual unions or marriages with the Chinese men. In Casa Grande highland Amerindian women and Chinese men participated in communal "mass marriages", taking place after a Chinese matchmaker collected groups of highland women and transported them to the marriage site to marry Chinese men.
Education and language
Significant test score gaps exist between Indigenous students and non-Indigenous students in elementary schools. In addition, Peru has over 60 distinct Amerindian linguistic groups, speaking languages beyond Spanish and the Incan Quechua, not all of which are recognized. Indigenous groups, and therefore language barriers to education, remain a problem primarily in the sierra (Andean highlands) and the selva (Amazon jungle) regions of Peru, less in the cities of the costa (coast). Throughout the second half of the 20th century, steps have been made to target and strengthen Indigenous communities' education, starting with the introduction of bilingual education throughout the country, promoting teaching in both Spanish and Quechua or other Indigenous languages. Quechua was made an official language of Peru in 1975, and while it was later qualified to specific regions of the country and for specific purposes, it is still recognized as equal to Spanish in some regions.
Activists promoting intercultural bilingual education view it as being the solution for a more "equitable, diverse, and respectful society", garnering social economic, political, and cultural rights for Indigenous groups while simultaneously encouraging "Indigenous autonomy and cultural pride". Criticisms of bilingual education have been raised, in some cases most strongly by Quechua-speaking highlanders themselves, strongly opposing intercultural efforts. These Indigenous highlanders view intercultural efforts as an imposition of "disadvantageous educational changes" blocking their economic and social advancement, historically seen as only possible through learning to read and write Spanish. While the legislation has been one of the most forward in Latin America concerning Indigenous education, the implementation of these educational programs has been technically challenging, with teachers agreeing in theory but finding it impossible in practice to bring an intercultural mindset and facilitate bilingualism, particularly with often very limited resources. However, in contrast, studies by Nancy Hornberger and others have shown that the use of children's native language in schools did allow for far greater "oral and written pupil participation - in absolute, linguistic, and sociolinguistic terms".
With a lack of political will and economic force to push a nationally unified bilingual education program, many disconnected efforts have been put forth. The National Division of Intercultural Bilingual Education (DINEBI) was started, among other efforts, and worked to further incorporate bilingual and intercultural education. The Program for the Training of Native Bilingual Teachers (FORMABIAP) is another example of intercultural education efforts, focusing particularly on the Amazon regions of Peru.
Territories Indigenous people hold title to substantial portions of Peru, primarily in the form of communal reserves (). The largest Indigenous communal reserve in Peru belongs to the Matsés people and is located on the Peruvian border with Brazil on the Javary River.