THE WORLD ATLAS

Empire · 1438–1533 · Northern South America

Inca Empire (Tawantinsuyu)

Also known as Inca Empire

The Inca were a small kingdom around Cusco in the Peruvian highlands, traditionally founded by Manco Cápac around 1200. In 1438 Pachacuti repelled an attack by the rival Chanka and began a series of conquests that his son Topa Inca and grandson Huayna Capac continued, creating Tawantinsuyu, the Land of the Four Quarters, the largest empire in the pre-Columbian Americas.

The Inca ruled some 10 million people through a network of about 40,000 kilometres of roads with rope bridges and relay runners, state storehouses and a labour tax called mit'a, keeping records on knotted khipus. They resettled loyal colonists and spread the Quechua language. A civil war between Huáscar and Atahualpa had just ended when Francisco Pizarro arrived; he captured Atahualpa and executed him in 1533.

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Machu Picchu, the Inca royal estate in the Andes, built c. 1450
Machu Picchu, the Inca royal estate in the Andes, built c. 1450 Diego Delso · CC BY-SA 4.0
Years
1438–1533
Capital
Cusco
Greatest extent
1527, about 2.00 million km²
Region
Northern South America

From southern Colombia to central Chile; c. 2.0M km² in 1527 (Taagepera 1997; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006)

Legacy

Machu Picchu and the Inca roads are world-famous, and Quechua, the Inca state language, is still spoken by millions of Andean people.

Timeline of Inca Empire (Tawantinsuyu)

  1. c. 1470: The Incas conquer Chimor and its capital Chan Chan

    Chimor, the kingdom of the Chimú people, ruled the desert coast of northern Peru from its great capital, Chan Chan. Its people farmed irrigated river valleys and were famed for their pottery and fine work in gold, silver and copper. It was the last kingdom with any chance of stopping the Incas. Around 1470 the Inca prince Topa Inca Yupanqui, commanding for his father Pachacuti, defeated the Chimú ruler Minchançaman. Skilled Chimú artists were later brought to Cusco to work for the Inca rulers, and the Inca map now stretched along the northern coast of Peru.

  2. Topa Inca Yupanqui succeeds Pachacuti and doubles the empire

    Pachacuti had turned the small kingdom of Cusco into Tawantinsuyu, the 'land of four parts', and with his son Topa Inca brought much of Peru under Inca rule. When Pachacuti died in 1471, Topa Inca became Sapa Inca, or sole ruler, and reigned until 1493. He extended the empire north along the Andes through modern Ecuador, rebuilding Quito. In the south he pushed into what is now Chile, toward the Maule river, where the Mapuche resisted. Under him the empire roughly doubled in size, and it became the largest state in the pre-Columbian Americas.

  3. Huayna Capac succeeds and extends Inca rule into Ecuador

    Topa Inca died around 1493, and after a struggle over the succession his son Huayna Capac became Sapa Inca. He continued the empire's expansion. In the south he pushed further into what is now Chile and Argentina. In the north he campaigned through Ecuador into southern Colombia, and he became so attached to Ecuador that he spent most of his reign there, ruling from Tumebamba (Cuenca) and Quito. Under him the Inca Empire reached its greatest extent, stretching some 3,500 km from north to south.

  4. Push into the Amazon near the Chinchipe is stopped by the Shuar

    From their highland base, the Incas also tried to expand east into the lowland forests of the Amazon basin, but these lands were very different from the Andean valleys they knew. In Ecuador, Huayna Capac's forces pushed into the Amazon lowlands as far as the Chinchipe river. There they were stopped and pushed back by the Shuar, a forest people of the eastern lowlands. The Inca Empire article dates this setback to 1527. It marked the eastern limit of Inca expansion in the north.

  5. c. 1527: Huayna Capac dies, possibly of a European disease

    Huayna Capac died around 1527, after returning from campaigns in the far north with a fever. He may have died of a European disease such as smallpox or measles, which spread ahead of the Spaniards who had reached the Pacific coast, although some historians dispute this. His chosen heir, Ninan Cuyochi, died at about the same time. The deaths left no clear successor. Two of Huayna Capac's sons, Huáscar in Cusco and Atahualpa in the north, both claimed the throne.

  6. Atahualpa defeats his brother Huáscar in the civil war

    Huáscar, crowned in Cusco, began a war against his half-brother Atahualpa, who commanded the veteran armies stationed in the north. The Inca Civil War lasted from 1529 to 1532 and devastated the empire. Atahualpa's generals Chalcuchimac and Quizquiz won a series of victories, and in 1532 they routed Huáscar's last army near Cusco and captured him. Atahualpa was now master of the empire. But the war had left it divided and exhausted just as a small band of Spaniards arrived.

  7. Pizarro seizes Atahualpa at Cajamarca (16 November)

    Francisco Pizarro, a Spanish conquistador, had landed in Peru with a small force of about 168 men. Atahualpa, camped near Cajamarca with a large army, agreed to meet him. On 16 November 1532 he entered the town's plaza with thousands of attendants, mostly unarmed. After the friar Vicente de Valverde demanded that he accept Christianity and the Spanish king, the hidden Spaniards attacked with guns, cannon and horses. They killed thousands and captured Atahualpa, leaving the empire without its ruler.

  8. Atahualpa executed; Spaniards take Cusco in November

    In captivity Atahualpa offered a huge ransom of gold and silver for his release, and he arranged for his captive brother Huáscar to be killed. After the Spaniards had collected the ransom, they accused him of treason and of murdering Huáscar. He was baptised and then executed by garrotte, on 29 August 1533 according to most accounts. Pizarro then marched south with a puppet ruler and Inca allies, and on 15 November 1533 entered Cusco, the Inca capital. The Inca Empire had fallen, though resistance continued from Vilcabamba until 1572.

Periods and reigns

Rulers

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Chapters

Sources