45 Interesting Facts About Peru

Last updated on April 19th, 2022

29. Ever wondered why the climatic condition El Niño was named that way? Well, it was named this way because it hits Peru during Christmas and thus, they decided to name it after baby Jesus (El Niño Jesus).

30. For thousands of year, ancient Peruvians used the coca plant which cocaine comes from for medicinal use and during religious occasions.

31. Did you know that Peruvians love bullfighting? It is said that is was introduced by Spaniards in 1538.

32. Another fact related to bullfighting in Peru is that the bull-fighting ring that stands in Lima was built in 1766 is the oldest bullring in the Americas and the second-oldest in the world after La Maestranza in Spain.

Peru on the Map

33. The ancient Peruvian Empire of Inca was ones the largest empire in the Americas.

34. The world’s tallest flowering plant–Eucalyptus–is found in Peru.

35. If bird droppings are no issue for you, you would have survived Peru. There was a period in the 1800s when these droppings were among Peru’s greatest exports to Europe to be used as fertilizer.

36. Peru has some of the driest deserts in the world. For instance, the Atacama Desert which it shares with Chile has some points that have never seen rainfall in 400 years.

37. The Peruvians had invented nearly all weaving techniques used today by 2,500 B.C.

38. There is plenty of asparagus in Peru, so much that it was the world’s second largest exporter in 2017 ($409.1 million – 33.5% of total asparagus exports.)

39. You will be surprised to learn that some Peruvian tribes used wines know as yagé administered by a shaman to promote healing and knowledge. The wine has hallucinogenic properties.

40. A surprising fact about Peru’s culture is trial marriage. This type of marriage exists in the Quechua tribe whereby men and women are allowed to marry freely and end their marriages whenever they like.

41. A person is given one poncho (an outer garment designed to keep the body warm) to last a lifetime. This may be because one poncho takes up to 600 hours to complete.

42. Marriage in Peru is not a joke. The couple must enter a period where they serve each other. The woman works with the mother-in-law and the man with the father-in-law.

43. Did you know that Peru has the second-largest portion of the Amazon rainforest after the Brazilian Amazon?

44. If you think that shamanism (a shaman is a healer who moves into an altered state of consciousness to access a hidden reality in the spirit world for purposes of bringing back healing, power, and information) is an old thing, then think twice. It is still used in Peru to date. This may be because most of the population cannot afford modern doctors, and it is not a bad thing as the country’s former President, Fernando Belaúnde Terry, employed a shaman to treat them.

45. For the Peruvian tribe of Inca, the sign that two people are married was not an exchange of rings but of sandals.

Peru – country at a glance