Population of Peru 1800-2020
In 1800, the region of present-day Peru had a population of approximately 1.3 million people. Growth was slow at the beginning of the 19 th century. However, following Peru’s breakaway from the Spanish empire in 1824, the population would begin to slowly increase, and would nearly triple by the turn of the 20th century to approximately 3.7 million. This growth would expand exponentially in the mid-1900s, particularly during the global baby boom in the 1950s and 1960s, as an increase in fertility combined with decreases in child mortality led to rapid growth of the increasingly urbanizing population. This growth would slow somewhat between 1995 and 2013, a slowdown in part attributed to a large-scale expansion of family planning services in the country. However, the last decade has seen an increase in the rate of population growth in Peru, as the country has been one of the main destinations for Venezuelan refugees; with over 600,000 refugees residing in the country as of 2019. As a result, by 2020, almost 33 million people are estimated to live in the country.
