Peru, a country that swears in on Thursday as the new president Ollanta Humala

Peru, a country in the last decade has had the greatest growth in Latin America, will from Thursday a new president, leftist Ollanta Humala, who will replace the right-Alan Garcia.

GEOGRAPHIC LOCATION: Located in the center-west of South America and bordered to the north by Ecuador and Colombia, east by Brazil, southeast by Bolivia, Chile to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean.

AREA: 1,285,216 occupies km2 and is divided into three regions: the sea coast (10.6% of its territory) with large areas of desert, Andes (31.8%) and Amazon (57.6%).

CAPITAL: Lima, 8.4 million.

POPULATION: 28.2 million, according to the latest census of the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics (2007).

OFFICIAL LANGUAGE: Spanish (84%), Quechua (13%).

RELIGION: Catholic (80%), evangelicals (10%).

HISTORY: Peru is the cradle of the Inca Empire which had its heyday between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, covering much of South America and included Ecuador, southern Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, much of Chile and northwestern Argentina.

He was then a Spanish colony since 1532 and chief viceroyalty of South America to independence on July 28, 1821. Since then recorded 65 governments and of these only 24 civilians. There were some transient and meetings overwhelmingly military coups until the twentieth century, the last of which led to 12 years of military rule ended in 1980.

In 1980, the Maoist Shining Path guerrillas began a war that ended in 2000 which left 70,000 dead and missing.

In 1992, President Alberto Fujimori (elected in 1990) staged a coup d'etat in alliance with the military leadership. Fujimori was sentenced in 2009 to 25 years in prison for violation of human rights and corruption.

POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS: Peru is a democratic republic with a government that is organized according to the principle of separation of powers. The president is elected for five years without immediate reelection. Congress, unicameral, 130 members will from the next legislature. The country is divided into 24 departments.

ECONOMY:

GDP: 153,000 million in 2010 (Ministry of Economy).

GDP per capita: $ 5,200.

Exports in 2010: 35.073 million dollars.

Imports in 2010: 29,880 million.

In 2010 the Peruvian economy grew 8.78% (official).

Foreign debt: 33,000 million.

Poverty: 34%. Extreme Poverty: 11.5%.

International reserves: 46.307 million dollars.

Peru has signed free trade agreements with the United States, China, Singapore, Canada, Mexico, European Union, the countries of the European Free Trade Association, EFTA (Switzerland, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway), with Japan and South Korea.

Currency: Peruvian sol (equivalent to 0.35 U.S. cents).

ARMED FORCES: 160,000 troops (total police).