The concept of Inca province at Tawantinsuyu

Abstract

Although Inca ‘provinces’ are frequently mentioned and the existence of the ‘province’ as a fundamental unit of Inca state organization has largely been taken for granted, there is little detailed discussion of what this concept would have meant within ancient Andean society and there is a need to critically evaluate the many varied and sometimes conflicting conceptualizations of the Inca province. Given the extremely diverse views on the subject, this paper aims to critically evaluate existing concepts and propose a new conceptualization based on the idea of administrative archipelagos.