The Inca Empire was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political and military center of the empire was located in Cuzco. The Inca Empire arose from the highlands of Peru sometime in early 13th century. From 1438 to 1533, the Incas used a variety of methods, from conquest to peaceful assimilation, to incorporate a large portion of western South America, centered on the Andean mountain ranges, including large parts of modern Ecuador, Peru, western and south central Bolivia, northwest Argentina, north and north-central Chile, and southern Colombia. The Incas identified their king as "child of the sun."

The Quechua name for the empire was Tawantinsuyu, which can be translated as The Four Regions or The Four United Regions. Before the Quechua spelling reform it was written in Spanish as Tahuantinsuyo. Tawantin is a group of four things (tawa "four" with the suffix -ntin which names a group); suyu means "region" or "province". The empire was divided into four Suyus, whose corners met at the capital, Cusco (Qosqo), in modern-day Peru. The official language of the empire was Quechua, although scores if not hundreds of local languages were spoken. There were many local forms of worship, most of them concerning local sacred "Huacas", but the Inca leadership encouraged the worship of Inti, the sun god. They tried to impose it against the cult of Pachamama which was the main common deity worshiped in the Andean area.