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Peru has a population that includes Mestizos, Amerindians, Europeans, Africans and Asians. Peru ranks high in social freedom it is an active member of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Pacific Alliance, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership and the World Trade Organization and is considered as a middle power. The country forms part of The Pacific Pumas, a political and economic grouping of countries along Latin America's Pacific coast that share common trends of positive growth, stable macroeconomic foundations, improved governance and an openness to global integration. Its main economic activities include mining, manufacturing, agriculture and fishing, along with other growing sectors such as telecommunications and biotechnology. The sovereign state of Peru is a representative democratic republic divided into 25 regions. The 2000s marked economic expansion and poverty reduction, but the subsequent decade revealed long-existing sociopolitical vulnerabilities, exacerbated by a political crisis instigated by Congress and the COVID-19 pandemic, precipitating the period of unrest beginning in 2022. Implementation of Plan Verde shifted Peru towards neoliberal economics under the reign of Alberto Fujimori and Vladimiro Montesinos in the 1990s, with the former's political ideology of Fujimorism leaving a lasting imprint on the country's governance that continues to present day. Throughout the 20th century, Peru grappled with political and social instability, including the internal conflict between the state and guerrilla groups, interspersed with periods of economic growth. In the ensuing years, the country first suffered from political instability until a period of relative economic and political stability began due to the exploitation of guano that ended with the War of the Pacific (1879–1884). Peru formally proclaimed independence in 1821, and following the foreign military campaigns of José de San Martín and Simón Bolívar, and the decisive battle of Ayacucho, Peru completed its independence in 1824. Higher education started in the Americas with the official establishment of the National University of San Marcos in Lima in 1551. The Spanish Empire conquered the region in the 16th century and Charles V established a viceroyalty with the official name of the Kingdom of Peru that encompassed most of its South American territories, with its capital in Lima. Notable pre-colonial cultures and civilizations include the Caral-Supe civilization (the earliest civilization in the Americas and considered one of the cradles of civilization), the Nazca culture, the Wari and Tiwanaku empires, the Kingdom of Cusco, and the Inca Empire, the largest known state in the pre-Columbian Americas. Peruvian territory was home to several cultures during the ancient and medieval periods, and has one of the longest histories of civilization of any country, tracing its heritage back to the 10th millennium BCE. At 1,285,216 km 2 (496,225 sq mi), Peru is the 19th largest country in the world, and the third largest in South America. Peru has a population of over 34 million, and its capital and largest city is Lima. Peru is a megadiverse country with habitats ranging from the arid plains of the Pacific coastal region in the west to the peaks of the Andes mountains extending from the north to the southeast of the country to the tropical Amazon basin rainforest in the east with the Amazon River.
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It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pacific Ocean.
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info)), is a country in western South America.Peru ( / p ə ˈ r uː/ ( listen) Spanish: Perú Quechua: Piruw Aymara: Piruw ), officially the Republic of Peru ( Spanish: República del Perú ( help
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