When the Spanish arrived in the sixteenth century, Peru was the homeland of the highland Inca Empire, the largest and most advanced state in pre-Columbian America. After the conquest of the Incas, the Spanish Empire established a Viceroyalty with jurisdiction over most of its South American domains.

In that sense, the Inca nobles were a small percentage of the total population of the empire, probably numbering only 15,000 to 40,000, but ruling a population of around 10 million people. When the Spanish arrived to the Empire of the Incas they gave the name "Peru" to what the natives knew as Tawantinsuyu.