Peruvians () are the citizens of Peru. There were Andean and coastal ancient civilizations like Caral, which inhabited what is now Peruvian territory for several millennia before the Spanish conquest in the 16th century; Peruvian population decreased from an estimated 5–9 million in the 1520s to around 600,000 in 1620 mainly because of infectious diseases carried by the Spanish. Spaniards and Africans arrived in large numbers in 1532 under colonial rule, mixing widely with each other and with Native Peruvians. During the Republic, there has been a gradual immigration of European people (especially from Spain and Italy, and in a less extent from Germany, France, Croatia, and the British Isles). Chinese and Japanese arrived in large numbers at the end of the 19th century. With 31.2 million inhabitants according to the 2017 Census. Peru is the fifth most populous country in South America. Its demographic growth rate declined from 2.6% to 1.6% between 1950 and 2000; population is expected to reach approximately 46 - 51 million in 2050. As of 2017, 79.3% lived in urban areas and 20.7% in rural areas. Major cities include Lima, home to over 9.5 million people, Arequipa, Trujillo, Chiclayo, Piura, Iquitos, Huancayo, Cusco and Pucallpa, all of which reported more than 250,000 inhabitants. The largest expatriate Peruvian communities are in the United States, South America (Argentina, Chile, Venezuela and Brazil), Europe (Spain, Italy, France and the United Kingdom), Japan, Australia, and Canada. Ethnic groups In the 2017 Census, those of 12 years old and above were asked what ancestral origin they belong to, with 60% of Peruvians self-identified as mestizos, 20% as Quechuas, 5% as European, 3% as Afro-Peruvian, 2% as Aymaras, 0.6% as Amazonians, and 0.1% as Asian. Indigenous people are found in the southern Andes, though a large portion, also to be found in the southern and central coast due to the massive internal labor migration from remote Andean regions to coastal cities, during the past four decades. Mestizo Mestizos compose 40%- 60.2% of the total population. The term traditionally denotes Peruvians of mixed Indigenous and European ancestry (mostly Spanish ancestry). This term was part of the caste classification used during colonial times, whereby people of exclusive Spanish descent who were born in the colonies were called criollos, people of mixed Indigenous and Spanish descent were called mestizos, those of African and Spanish descent were called mulatos, and those of Indigenous and African