Incan Expansion

Why did the Incans limit themselves to the Andes? Why didn't they expand east into Argentina for example? They had the crop and animal package that would allow them to prosper in temperate regions after all.
 
I know they tried to expand further into Chile, but were stopped by the tribes of the area.

The main reason why the didn't expand more I would think is because their empire was so huge already. Communication between the northern and southern parts of the empire was pretty much at it's limit. If they expand any further, the Inka would not be able to effectively deal with rebellions or other problems in the far corners of the Empire.
 
They expanded over 2 million square kilometers, is about equal to the Western Roman empire. This is all through some of the highest altitudes and toughest mountain terrain. I would say the size of the Incan empire was already wanked in OTL, expanding into Argentina
 
Oh, many reasons. As 8Deer said, they were stopped in *Chile by some rather fierce tribes. They didn't go much into *Argentina because the lands the Inca bordered was a large desert of no value whatsoever. They didn't get far into the Amazon thanks to disease, local tribes, and lack of real incentive (the natives there weren't very rich).

They could have gotten further north into *Colombia, where there were some pretty wealthy cultures, but a series of unfortunate events (Smallpox, civil war and the Spanish) brought about the end of the Empire before such a conquest could have been made. So, if you delay the arrival of the Spanish by a few decades, and find some way to prevent that pesky civil war (Huayna Capac names Atahualpa as his sole successor before dying instead of splitting the empire with Atahualpa and Huascar, for example), the Incan Empire could have pushed the northern border much further north.

Tobit said:
They expanded over 2 million square kilometers, is about equal to the Western Roman empire. This is all through some of the highest altitudes and toughest mountain terrain. I would say the size of the Incan empire was already wanked in OTL,

And the beauty of it all was that the Incans did all that in a century. :D
 
It's simple logistics. There's little incentive to expand beyond the mostly geographic boundaries they had for the effort required. As Bying said, there was one final frontier, ie, north, but IMO the already destabilizing empire wouldn't have been able to deal with that much overstretch.
 
And the beauty of it all was that the Incans did all that in a century. :D

Yep. I'm proud to be part Inca. Aztecs and Mayans can suck it. :p

It's simple logistics. There's little incentive to expand beyond the mostly geographic boundaries they had for the effort required. As Bying said, there was one final frontier, ie, north, but IMO the already destabilizing empire wouldn't have been able to deal with that much overstretch.

Again, if there hadn't been the throne succession problem and the spread of disease, they probably could have done it. The Inca had several developments and tactics at their disposal that could have helped them expand further north if they had been given the chance. Not only was the Inca Road system and the runners who served as messengers incredibly effective and advanced, the Inca army would create food and supply depots every mile along the road and as they advanced into territory. This way, even if defeated, only a mile behind them was food and supplies.

The Inca also used aggressive diplomacy to their advantage. The Inca, being mindful not to waste men and resources would usually ask neighbouring tribes whether they felt like joining the Inca Empire where the local chieftains would become middle-management and go to school and where no one would have to be killed, or the other option which was to face the massive and organized Inca army and have lots of dead people everywhere. Often, these tribes preferred the former.

The Inca could've expanded further north if given the chance, and they most likely would've been successful.
 
So many juicy tidbits, so little time

One should remember that the actual timespan of the Inca Empire was very short. They only expanded out of their core area around Cuzco circa 1470, when they conquered the Chimu. Between 1470 and 1530, they conquered the rest of their empire...a span of 60 years. Given the limited time they were really active, the question is not, "why didn't they expand more?" The real question is how they managed to accomplish as much as they did.
 
Why didn't they expanded more into Argentina? Well, because the Incas only conquered people who were sedentary and had knowledge of agriculture. There are exceptions, certainly, but they did tend to stay within areas were people had this characteristics. That's why they had so much trouble in submitting the Mapuche who lived South of river Maule, and failed in doing so. And the Mapuche were a much more complex tribal society than many of the ones that lived, let's say, in the Pampas, for example.

Had they had morte time, they could rather easily have expanded a bit more into Argentina than IOTL, into areas like Tucuman or Western Santiago del Estero, which were inhabited by agriculturers Maybe even to the North-Western part of Cordoba. But what would they do in the pampas??? Nobody there would submitt to them or pay them tribute, no matter what diplomacy they tried. The nomad hunter-gatherers who lived there would just retreat eastwards if preassured. The Incas would have to start anew, bringing settlers, growing fields, etc. No locals would give them food, so they'd have to bring it with them or import it from the empire mainlands. And they'd have to witstand attacks on a daily basis.

Yet they might have had the technical ability to do this, and succeed... but for what? What would they gain if they had settled the pampas? What goods could they have sent back to Cuzco? It wasn't like they were having a population problem and needed to disperse their population...

As Kyngbig said, there's also another problem: in order to get to the fertile pampas they'd have to cross a semiarid region in Northwestern Argentina. One which, unlike the Andean regions of Northwestern Argentina (which are also semiarid), wasn't inhabitanted by peasants. The pampas, as I said, wasn't either. So the Incas would have have to brought their crops with them and just hope their potatoes and their corn, perfectly fit for growing at more than 2000 meters, would give seeds at 100 meter above the sea level.
 
They could have gotten further north into *Colombia, where there were some pretty wealthy cultures, but a series of unfortunate events (Smallpox, civil war and the Spanish) brought about the end of the Empire before such a conquest could have been made. So, if you delay the arrival of the Spanish by a few decades, and find some way to prevent that pesky civil war (Huayna Capac names Atahualpa as his sole successor before dying instead of splitting the empire with Atahualpa and Huascar, for example), the Incan Empire could have pushed the northern border much further north.

Yes, Colombian highlins were definetly within their reach. The tropical and forested Colombian coasts (in the Pacific and the Atlantic), no, unless something changes significantely.

In the South they could have expanded a bit more into the Argentinian Northwest, into the areas which already knew maize... but that's about it. The River Maule, in Chile, was probably their natural frontier.

An expanded empire, if Spanish don't arrive and if it survives the expansion without dissolving itself, could go from Colombiam highlands to Central Chile. To the west, it's limits would be the Amazon, Chaco forrests and the semiarids regions of San Luis and Eastern Mendoza. The core of the empire would be the Andes
 
This said, an Inca empire which colonized the pampas, grows maize there and brings llamas into the place would be really cool. Maybe in that flat temperate region they could rear them into bigger animals, eventually being able to mount them. Then you'd have llama caravans traversing the Pampas, and maybe even llama-riding nomads:cool:, once the Gennaken Indians adopt these, as they adopted the horse IOTL
 
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