Peru is located on the northern Pacific Coast of South America, bordered by Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, Bolivia, and Chile. Its territory of roughly 1.3 million square kilometers (501,934 square miles) is divided into three regions: the more economically developed arid coast, the mountainous highlands (the center of the pre-Columbian civilizations), and the eastern tropical lowlands. The lowlands account for only about 10 percent of the population, but contain roughly two-thirds of the country's landmass. According to a 2002 estimate, the country's 26.5 million inhabitants included a mixture of European, Amerindian, Asian, and African ancestries. Amerindians and mestizos (mixed European and Amerindian) constituted 42 and 37 percent, respectively, of the population.

In Peru racial classifications are as much cultural as genetic. For much of the nation's independent history, individuals moved among categories, generally toward the more privileged mestizo or white classes, by improving their economic positions and adopting the lifestyle and language of the group to...