Tawantinsuyu in the context of "Aleixo Garcia"

The ayllu, a family clan, is the traditional form of a community in the Andes, especially among Quechuas and Aymaras. They are an indigenous local government model across the Andes region of South America, particularly in Bolivia and Peru.

Ayllus functioned prior to Inca conquest, during the Inca and Spanish colonial period, and continue to exist to the present day – such as the Andean community Ocra. Membership gave individual families more variation and security on the land that they farmed. Ayllus had defined territories and were essentially extended family or kin groups, but could include non-related members. Their primary function was to solve subsistence issues, and issues of how to get along in family, and the larger community. Ayllus descended from stars in the Inca cosmogony, and just like stars had unique celestial locations, each ayllu had a terrestrial location defined by the paqarina, the mythical point of emergence of the lineage huaca.

Qullasuyu (Quechua and Aymara spelling, listen; Collasuyu, Kholla Suyu; Spanish: Collasuyo) was the southeastern provincial region of the Inca Empire. Qullasuyu is the region of the Qulla and related specifically to the native Qulla Quechuas who primarily resided in areas such as Cochabamba and Potosí. Most Aymara territories which are now largely incorporated into the modern South American states of northern Chile, Peru, Bolivia and the Argentine northwest were annexed during the reign of Sapa Inca Huayna Cápac in the sixteenth century.

Recently, there have been movements to form a "Greater Qullasuyu" (or Qullana Suyu Marka) which would incorporate a territory similar to the former Tawantinsuyu in extent. This ideal has been proposed by the office of the Apu Mallku and the parliament of the Qullana. Qullasuyu was the largest of the four suyu (or "quarters", the largest divisions of the Inca empire) in terms of area. This suyu encompassed the Bolivian Altiplano and much of the southern Andes, running down into northwest Argentina and as far south as the Maule river near modern Santiago, Chile. Along with Kuntisuyu, it was part of the Hurin Suyukuna or "Lower Quarters" of the empire.

Huayna Capac (/ˈwaɪnə ˈkæpæk/ WY-nə KAP-ak; Cusco Quechua: Wayna Qhapaq [ˈwajna ˈqʰapaχ] – lit. 'the young generous one'; Spanish: [ˈwajna ˈkapak]; before 1493 – 1527) was the eleventh Sapa Inca of Tawantinsuyu, the Inca Empire. He was the son of and successor to Túpac Inca Yupanqui, the sixth Sapa Inca of the Hanan dynasty, and eleventh of the Inca civilization. He was born in Tumipampa and tutored to become Sapa Inca from a young age.

Tawantinsuyu reached its greatest extent under Huayna Capac, as he expanded the empire's borders south along the Chilean coast, and north through what is now Ecuador and southern Colombia. According to the priest Juan de Velasco he absorbed the Quito Confederation into his empire by marrying Queen Paccha Duchicela, halting a long protracted war. Huayna Capac founded the city Atuntaqui and developed the city Cochabamba as an agriculture and administrative center. The Sapa Inca greatly expanded the Inca road system and had many qullqa (storehouses) built.