Quipu (also spelled khipu) are recording devices fashioned from strings historically used by a number of cultures in the region of Andean South America. Knotted strings for collecting data, government management and keeping records were also used by the ancient Chinese, Tibetans and Japanese, but such practices should not be confused with the quipu, which refers only to the Andean method. Quipu is the Spanish spelling and the most common spelling in English. Khipu (pronounced [ˈkʰɪpʊ], plural: khipukuna) is the word for "knot" in Cusco Quechua. In most Quechua varieties, the term is kipu.