Overview

The third-largest country in South America, Peru borders Ecuador and Colombia to the north, Brazil and Bolivia to the east, and Chile to the south. At 496,222 square miles, it is larger than Spain, Portugal, and France combined. In 1993 Peru had a population of over 22 million, and its capital, Lima, was home to fully one-third. This picturesque land is divided into three main geographic regions: the costa, along the South Pacific; the sierra, or highlands of the Andes mountains; and the selva, or jungle, in the east.

The costa is a thin, mostly barren strip of desert between the ocean and the mountains. Except for a few valleys where mountain rivers have brought enough water to make farming possible, the Peruvian desert is the driest in the world, with some areas never having seen even an inch of rain in recorded history. This region is prone...