Inca really only means king or emperor ("pope" might be closer because the Inca was both a king and religious leader), but so important was the Inca, that his name has been given to an entire culture. The Incas would be the last in a series of different but related cultures that rose in the Andes Mountains of South America.

The first Inca was Manco Capac, who ruled from his capital at Cuzco sometime after 1200 AD. The ninth Inca, Pachacutic, after 1438, began the great expansion of the Inca people into an empire by conquering neighbouring cities and tribes. In 1470, the Chimu Empire (which had expanded to include the whole north coast of Peru) was destroyed. Then, between 1471 and 1493, Inca Tupac Yupanqui, advanced as far south as the modern city of Santiago de Chile. With the conquest of the land of Quito (modern Ecuador) in 1513 by Inca Huayana Capac, the empire had reached its peak of power and size.

The Inca state borrowed much from earlier cultures. It was an absolute theocracy. That means the Inca (in this case, always a man) ruled as both king and high priest.

In fact, the Inca was worshipped as divine, considered the Sun God in human form. There was a standing army, with all the commanders picked from the Inca's family.

Terrace farming was practised which allowed steep mountain slopes to be farmed. Maize and potatoes were the staple crops. The most important domesticated animal was the llama, a distant relative of the camel. It was used both for meat and its wool. Few if any have surpassed the people of the Andes when it came to weaving and the production of fine cloth. The economy was communal and people did not own land or the food they grew. Most food was collected in large public storage places, where it was later redistributed so everyone would have a share of the harvest, even if they were too sick or weak to work. The Inca empire was cris-crossed by 10,000 km of roads, with deep mountain valleys crossed by suspension bridges. A kind of postal system was operated with a network of relay runners carrying messages. Across the Andes to the north and east, the Chibcha culture dominated the central plateau of Colombia. In the most important Chibcha religious ritual in honour of the Sun God, the king would be covered in sticky resin and then coated in gold dust. The king would then swim in the sacred Lake Guatavita. The legend of the golden king would come to the Spaniards as "El Dorado" (meaning the "golden one"), but over time El Dorado came to be thought of as an entire city. Spanish explorers spent many years looking for this mythical city of gold called El Dorado.