How Did The Inca Empire's Geography Affect The Incan Culture

Tawantinsuyu, or The Inca empire’s geography drastically affected the culture of the Incas. It “...was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America”(Crystal Links), they lived in the Andes mountains and started as a small tribe.

They began to form at around 1200 A.D. They began to be a big empire by conquering other tribes and gaining new members. Provided, they became an elephantine empire, even if it was short lived. They had advanced medicine and surgical knowledge, and after doing surgeries, the patients had an 80% - 90% survival rate, and their knowledge spread. With their advantageous knowledge, they used a special way of communication, used only in certain situations, which is very complex. The form of communication was called Quipu, which is also called “talking knots”. The complex Quipus were mainly used to display numbers with decimals.

The Inca

Their environment affected their culture greatly.They would fish on the coast, and hunt in the mountains. Life in the Andes mountains may not have been the easiest thing in the world, but the Incas still managed to survive. They would build bridges from mountain peak to peak and over gorges for easier and shorter transportation. At around 1460 A.D. their empire split into 4 quarters, Collasuyu (also known as Qullasuyu), Antisuyu, Chinchaysuyu, Cuntinsuyu. Chinchaysuyu was the most populated and Qullasuyu was the largest by area. In the center of all of the Suyus, was Cusco. Their empire was federalist, Cusco was the capital and having the main power, and the smaller suyus having local power. It was mainly federalist because of the geography of the Inca empire. It had natural land borders that resemble “states”. This made federalism very suitable for their empire.

As you can see, the Inca Empire’s geography affected the culture of the Incas in many ways, and without its unique geography, might not have become the empire we know about