Peru Posters, Art Prints, Charts, Photographs & Maps
for social studies classrooms, home schoolers, offices.

Machu Picchu, one of the most recognized image of the Inca Empire, was built as an estate of an Inca emperor, the site chosen for its sacred landscape features in alignment with key astronomical events.

Situated on a mountain ridge above the Urubamba River valley in the Andes Mountains of Peru, Machu Picchu was known to the local population before being brought to international attention in 1911 by historian Hiram Bingham.

It was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1983.

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Lake Titicaca is the world's highest commercially navigable lake, the largest freshwater lake in South America, and 2nd largest in the world.

Lake Titicaca, in the Andes Mountains, strattles the border between Peru & Bolivia.

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• mask making lesson plan ideas
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Llamas are camelids (related to camels), and are used as a pack and meat animal by Andean cultures since pre-colombian times. Llamas coats are also important - their fine undercoats are used for handicrafts and garments and the coarser outer guard hair is used for rugs, wall-hangings and lead ropes.

Baby llamas are called crias.

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Lima, the capital and largest city of Peru (and fifth largest in Latin America), is located on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean midway between the northern border with Equador and southern border with Chile.

Pizarro established the Ciudad de los Reyes (City of the Kings) in 1535 but the Spanish pronounciation of the local name, Limaq, became the commonly used name.

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Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala
b. c. 1550; Peru
d. after 1616

Known both as Guaman Poma or Human Poma in his native Quechua language, and de Ayala as his Spanish name, was the son of an indigenous noble Peruvian. He served as a translator and wrote and illustrated the 1200 page The First New Chronicle and Good Government between 1600 and 1615, addressed to King Philip III.

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Francisco Pizarro
b. c. 1475, Spain
d. 6-26-1541 (assassinated)

Francisco Pizarro was a Spanish conquistador – a conqueror in search of gold and glory in the New World. ...

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Discovering the Potato -
The first European to see the potato, a plant native to Peru and cultivated there for 7,000 years, was Pedro de Cieza de Leon (1518–1560), a Spanish Conquistador and historian, in 1540. The potato was introduced to Europe circa 1570, Sir Walter Raleigh introduced the potato, a food that was considered fit only for the poor, to Ireland in 1589.

Simón Bolivar, Hispanic Heritage, Wall Poster

Simón Bolivar
b. 7-24-1783; Caracas, Venezuela
d. 12-17-1830; Santa Marta, Colombia (tuberculosis)

Simón Bolivar is often called “the George Washington of South America.” His heroic deeds helped many South American nations win their independence. During his lifetime, he helped millions of Latin Americans realize the dream of freedom. But he died without ever seeing his own fondest dream come true.

Simón Bolivar was born to a wealthy family in Caracas, Venezuela. His parents died when he was just a child, and he inherited a fortune. While on a trip to Europe, he met and married a young Spanish girl. But she died a short time after they returned to Caracas. Returning to Europe, Bolivar vowed that he would one day liberate Venezuela from the Spanish. He fulfilled this promise in 1811 when he captured Caracas and proclaimed Venezuela independent. The Spanish fought back, and soon forced Bolivar to flee to Jamaica and then to Haiti. But Bolivar gathered a force of fighting men and returned to South America. There, his victories over the Spanish led to independence for Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador.

Bolivar's dream was to unite all the countries of South America into one large and powerful nation. But one by one, the countries withdrew from the Colombian Union, as Bolivar called his union. By 1828, Simón Bolivar ruled only what is now Colombia. In 1830 health problems forced him to resign as Colombia's President, and he died in December of that year.

• Hispanic Heritage posters
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General José de San Martín
b. 2-25-1778; Argentina
d. 8-17-1850; France

San Martin is a National Hero in Argentina, Chile, & Peru

Mario Vargas Llosa
b. 3-28-1936; Arequipa, Peru

Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa was awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature “for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat”.

Maris Vargas Llosa quotes ~
• “If you are killed because you are a writer, that's the maximum expression of respect, you know.”
• “You cannot teach creativity - how to become a good writer. But you can help a young writer discover within himself what kind of writer he would like to be.”
• “No matter how ephemeral it is, a novel is something, while despair is nothing.”