Quinoa comes from the high Andes of South America, especially around the Lake Titicaca region in what is now Peru and Bolivia, where Indigenous peoples domesticated it thousands of years ago as a staple crop.

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Quinoa is native to the Andean highlands, stretching through countries such as Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, and Argentina, where it has been cultivated for roughly 3,000–5,000 years. It was a key traditional food for Inca, Aymara, and Quechua communities, who sometimes called it the “mother grain” despite it actually being a pseudocereal rather than a true cereal grain.

Today, most commercial quinoa still comes from Peru and Bolivia, though it is now grown in other regions like North America and Europe as demand for this protein‑rich Andean crop has spread worldwide.