The Inca Empire (or Inka Empire, Incan Empire, Tawantin Suyu, Tawantinsuyu, Tawantinsuyo) was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political and military center of the empire was located in Cusco in modern-day Peru. 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 official language of the empire was Quechua, although hundreds of local languages and dialects of Quechua were spoken. The Quechua name for the empire was Tawantinsuyu which can be translated as The Four Regions or The Four United Provinces. 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).
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—and imposed its sovereignty above other cults such as that of Pachamama. The Incas identified their king as "child of the sun."
Notable alternate versions of the Incan Empire have been discovered in the multiverse:
- Incan Empire (Aztec Empire)
- Inca Empire (Celestial Ascendance)
- Incan Empire (The Greater Americas)
- Inca Empire (Great Empires)
- Peru (Vicuña of the East)
- Tawatinsuyu (Superpowers)
- Tawantinsuyu (Chaos)
- Tawantinsuyu (The Kalmar Union)
- Tawantinsuyu (The Purple Mantle)
- Tawatinsuyu (Principia Moderni III Map Game)
- Tawantin Suyu (The Eagle Lives)
- Tawantinsuyo (Cabotia and Brasil)
- Tawantinsuyu (Columbus Sails for England)
- Tawantinsuyu (Imperium Islamica)
- Tawantinsuyu (Look to the West)