Ayacucho | 18,000 | 227,000 | Ayacucho | 20,000 | 9,200 Apurimac | 8,100 | 133,000 | Abancay | 6,500 | 7,854 Cuzco | 90,000 | 300,000 | Cuzco | 30,000 | 11,445 Puno | 28,000 | 270,000 | Puno | 13,000 | 12,600 | | | | | _Montaña Departments_| | | | | Amazonas | 14,000 | 53,000 | Chachapoyas | 4,500 | 7,635 San Martín | 30,000 | 33,000 | Moyabamba | 5,000 | 2,900 Loreto | 172,000 | 120,000 | Iquitos | 18,000 | 356 Madre de Dios | 25,500 | 16,000 | Maldonado | 500 | 836 ---------------------+---------+----------+---------------+----------+--------- [Illustration: ECUADOR, PERU, BOLIVIA, SOUTHWEST BRAZIL] POPULATION As previously stated, the population is largely an estimate, but probably approaches 6,000,000. From the above approximate figures it is evident that it is very unevenly distributed, as it is in fact in all of the Republics. There are three principal classes aside from the wild or uncivilized Indians of the _montaña_: the whites, the real governing class, chiefly of Spanish origin, some with a slight admixture of Indian blood; the mestizos, more nearly half and half, white and Indian, largely the artisan and tradesman class; the Indians, most numerous in the sierra, much as in Inca days, but probably poorer in mental and physical condition and in creature comforts than in the earlier period. The population of the _montaña_ in the lower forest section beyond the mountains is wild Indian except for a very small percentage of white and Indian gold diggers or rubber gatherers. Even now, in spite of exploration for several centuries, there are probably thousands who have never seen a white man. The entire number of _montaña_ Indians is estimated (it can only be a guess) at perhaps 300,000. Of the rest the proportion is very uncertain, but one writer gives it as Indians 50 per cent, mestizos 35, whites 11 per cent, the rest negroes, _zambos_, and Asiatics. EDUCATION