Aztecs and Incas Compare and Contrast

American Civilizations The Americas have been home to many thriving civilizations throughout the ages. The two biggest and most successful were the Incans and the Aztecs. These two cultures arose close together in the same time period and are similar in a few ways like religion and government. But due to where they started, other aspects of their civilization, like agriculture, are different from each other. The Aztecs and Incas were similar even though they were really far apart but also different even though they had so many similarities. The governments of both the Aztecs and the Incas were very much alike in how they were run and what they ruled. Both states held a bureaucracy in their capitals of Tenochtitlan and Cuzco. Though they both had a central government, they also split their territories into little regions run by elected officials of their region. The Aztecs and Incas had conquered many peoples who eventually outnumbered their rulers. Any and all people who ruled were from the upper end of the social hierarchy from both civilizations. These states had really similar ways of running their government although being so far away. A big difference between the two societies was how their agriculture worked. The Aztecs used to be nomadic Mexica who settled in a central Mesoamerican swamp type area. Their location allowed them to develop an agricultural system that uses chinampas. The chinampas were farms floating on water so they did little irrigation. The staple food of the Aztecs was maize, a type of corn. A part of their total produce also came from local conquered peoples’ tribute. The Incas were South American people who dominated the mountains of west South America. The mountains they lived in made it difficult to farm, pushing them towards terrace farming. They didn’t have water close by so irrigation was a vital part of agriculture. The Incas’ main food source came from potatoes and its varieties. The environments of these two