How chilli spread around the world
Every chilli on Earth descends from plants first grown in the Americas. In about a century after 1493, Spanish and Portuguese ships carried them to Europe, Africa and Asia, where they changed cuisines that had never known them. Here is that story, country by country, with a source for every date.
Checked October 20, 2026 · How we source facts
The route, in order
- c. 9,000–6,500 years ago
Mexico: Domesticated in central-east Mexico.
- 7,500–4,000 years ago
Peru: Eaten on the Peruvian coast.
- 1493
Spain and Portugal: Columbus describes ají to Spain.
- 1500s
Africa: Portuguese ships carry it to Africa.
- 1500s
India: Reaches India’s Portuguese ports.
- 1500s–1600s
Thailand: Replaces pepper as Thailand’s heat.
- 1569
Hungary: Known in Hungary, later paprika.
- 1570s
China: Arrives in China, first written up in 1591.
- 1614
Korea: First written mention in Korea.
- 1868
The USA: First Tabasco crop in Louisiana.
By country
- Chilli in Mexico: where it began, and what the Aztecs did with it
- Chilli in Peru: 7,500 years of uchu
- How chilli reached Europe: Columbus, Spain and Portugal
- Chilli in India: from Portuguese ships to 40% of the world’s dried chillies
- Chilli in Korea: why kimchi wasn’t always red
- Chilli in China: a garden ornament that won Sichuan and Hunan
- Chilli in Thailand: the heat came from pepper first
- Paprika in Hungary: from Turkish pepper to a Nobel Prize
- Chilli in Africa: berbere, melegueta and the Mombasa chilli
- Chilli in the USA: Tabasco, the Scoville test and New Mexico
Myths
Questions
Where did chilli peppers come from?
From the Americas. The chilli most of the world eats, Capsicum annuum, was most likely domesticated in central-east Mexico, and people on the Peruvian coast were eating several kinds of chilli 7,500 to 4,000 years ago.
When did chillies reach Europe?
Columbus described ají in January 1493. By the mid-1500s chillies were a common garden plant in Spain, and they were recorded in Italy by 1526 and Germany by 1543.
When did chillies reach Asia?
In the 16th century, on Portuguese and Spanish ships. They reached India’s Portuguese ports during the 1500s, China probably in the 1570s (first written record 1591) and Korea by 1614.
Does the word chilli come from Chile?
No. It comes from Classical Nahuatl chīlli, the language of the Aztecs.