Peru as loose confederation of cities scattered along the coast of northern Peru and southern Ecuador, the Chimu flourished from about 1140 to 1450. Their capital was at Chan Chan outside of modern-day Trujillo. In the highlands, both the Tiahuanaco culture, near Lake Titicaca in both Peru and Bolivia, and the Wari culture, near the present-day city of Ayacucho, developed large urban settlements and wide-ranging state systems between 500 and 1000 AD. In the 15th century, the Incas emerged as a powerful state which, in the span of a century, formed the largest empire in pre-Columbian America with their capital in
Name of Mexico of the country is the "United Mexican States" (), since it is a federation of thirty-two states. The official name was first used in the Constitution of 1824, and was retained in the constitutions of 1857 and 1917. Informally, "Mexico" is used along with "Mexican Republic" ("República Mexicana"). On 22 November 2012, outgoing Mexican President Felipe Calderón proposed changing the official name of the country to "México". Anahuac (meaning land surrounded by water) was the name in Nahuatl given to what is now Mexico during Pre-Hispanic times. When the Spanish conquistadors besieged México-Tenochtitlan in 1521, it was almost completely destroyed.