- published: 19 Nov 2014
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Peru is a multiethnic country formed by the combination of different groups over five centuries, so people in Peru usually treat their nationality as a citizenship rather than an ethnicity. Amerindians inhabited Peruvian territory for several millennia before Spanish Conquest in the 16th century; according to historian David N. Cook their population decreased from an estimated 5–9 million in the 1520s to around 600,000 in 1620 mainly because of infectious diseases.Spaniards and Africans arrived in large numbers under colonial rule, mixing widely with each other and with indigenous peoples.
With about 29.5 million inhabitants, Peru is the fourth most populous country in South America. Its demographic growth rate declined from 2.6% to 1.6% between 1950 and 2000; population is expected to reach approximately 42 million in 2050. As of 2007, 75.9% lived in urban areas and 24.1% in rural areas. Major cities include Lima, home to over 8 million people, Arequipa, Trujillo, Chiclayo, Piura, Iquitos, Cusco, Chimbote, and Huancayo, all of which reported more than 250,000 inhabitants in the 2007 census.
This article is about the demographic features of the population of Peru, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.
Peru is a multiethnic country, which means that it is home to people of many different historical backgrounds. Therefore, it is a multicultural country as well. Since it is a multiethnic society, Peruvian people usually treat their nationality as a citizenship instead of an ethnicity. The Peruvian census does not contain information about ethnicity so only rough estimates are available. Its population can be composed of Mestizos: 47%,Amerindians: 31%,European: 18.5%,Afro-Peruvians: 2%,Asians and others: 1%. Amerindians are found in the southern Andes, though a large portion, also to be found in the southern and central coast due to the massive internal labor migration from remote Andean regions to coastal cities,during the past four decades. While the Jungle are the "heart" of the indigenous populations of Peru, White people are mostly found in the northern highlands and are mostly of Spanish, Italian, British, French, German, Irish and Croatian descent.[citation needed]An estimated over 10,000 Palestinians live in Peru alone, many of these families who arrived after the first Israel wars in 1948-49 had reestablished and bettered themselves in Peru when it comes to socioeconomic status.