Lima

Lima, capital city of Peru, a large metropolitan area with a population of 7.75 million (2005); also a province and department of the same name. Like other Latin American megalopolises, Lima's size continues to increase as people move from the interior provinces seeking better economic opportunities. Lima is by far the most important industrial, commercial, banking, and political center of the country. It is situated in the central coastal region and connected with the rest of the country by a network of highways, including the longitudinal coastal Pan-American Highway and the Central Highway, which reaches the central highlands. On the Pacific Ocean coast, the port of Callao was once separated from Lima by a few miles but now is part of a continuous urban sprawl. This area, known as the Metropolitan Area of Lima and Callao (AMLC), has a population of 8.2 million (2007), more than one-fourth of Peru's total population. In 1995 the area produced 44 percent of Peru's gross domestic product, illustrating its economic, financial, and industrial primacy.

Lima extends from and beyond the Rímac River valley, a narrow fringe of dwindling agricultural land similar to other valleys (Huara, Chancay, Chillón, Mala, Cañete) in the department that sporadically interrupt the vast coastal desert. These valleys were among the most productive sugar and cotton areas up to the 1920s, when the decline of export prices and growing real estate developments helped drastically reduce the arable land. Although situated in a tropical region, Lima has a humid and mildly cold climate during the months of April to November because of cloud cover from the effects of the cold Humboldt current off the coast. During the summer months of December to March, the weather is sunny and hot.

Before the arrival of the Spaniards, the valley of Lima was under the influence of the important religious center of Pachacámac. This god was accepted by Inca rulers and worshipped as the one responsible for the periodic earthquakes. For defensive reasons Francisco Pizarro abandoned his initial plan to make the central highland town of Jauja the political center of the conquered Incan territory. He decided instead to establish the future administrative center of the Viceroyalty of Peru in the valley of Lima. Thus Ciudad de los Reyes (City of the Kings), as Lima was known in early colonial times, was founded on 18 January 1535.

Under Spanish colonial rule, Lima consisted of well-protected squared blocks of dwellings at the center of which was the Plaza de Armas, the square bordered by the government and municipal palaces and Lima's cathedral, as well as the most notable families' houses. This core, characterized by one-and two-story houses of distinct colonial architecture, Moorish balconies, and ornate baroque and rococo churches, is today known as the downtown area of Old Lima. In one of the city's old sections, Pachacamilla, the syncretic and popular religious cult of the Señor de los Milagros (Lord of Miracles), invoked for protection against earthquakes (the most destructive of which occurred in 1630, 1687, 1746, 1941, and 1970), began initially among the urban slaves of the owner of the Pachacamac estate just south of Lima.

Lima's old boundaries were modified by the mid-nineteenth century, when Henry Meiggs was contracted to demolish the remnants of the old colonial wall surrounding Lima. At the time, Lima, Callao, and the port of Pisco south of Lima were the main beneficiaries of the income produced by the booming export of guano, a fertilizer deposited on islands off the central coast by seabirds. Beyond the post-Independence political struggle that made Lima the target of conspiracies and coups by military chieftains, a rising civilian economic and social elite built new houses and summer ranches in Lima, Miraflores, and Chorrillos. However, by the end of the War of the Pacific and the Chilean occupation of the city (1881–1883), Lima's urban development was in decline.

Starting in the first two decades of the twentieth century, and especially in the 1920s, Lima's real estate boom began in earnest. New avenues and streets raised the price of land in and around Lima. New neighborhoods funded by profitable financial institutions extended considerably the urban area. A process of gradual industrialization, a growing urban market, and a rise in commercial and other services since the 1890s provided jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities. By the 1950s, however, the first slums appeared on Lima's outskirts, the result of a housing shortage as the massive immigration from the interior provinces steadily increased. By the 1970s, Lima was surrounded by an impressive and populous ring of slums, which by the 1990s contained almost a third of the city's population. In these vast and precarious concentrations, called pueblos jóvenes, or "young towns," inhabitants seek better urban services. Some have been successful. Through organization, residents of older settlements such as Villa El Salvador and Comas obtained not only basic city services, but also legal standing. The city's growth rate began to slow in the 1970s.

As a political and cultural center, Lima is the head of the government and the judicial system and is home to several universities, among them the oldest in the Americas, San Marcos University. It is a city that has inspired the witty anecdotes of Ricardo Palma, the tragicomic short stories of writer Julio Ramón Riveiro, and the skeptical novels by Mario Vargas Llosa. The main financial center of Peru, Lima possesses disproportionate financial and economic resources as a result of the unequal distribution of wealth and income in Peru. Since Peru's return to democracy, which was consolidated in 2001, Lima's voting population has been decisive. The city continues to grapple with growth and administration of water, electricity, and sewage, and the municipalities of Lima and Callao still struggle with systematic problems in urban transportation. Despite the extended poverty and obvious corruption in the Peruvian capital, people in Lima can enjoy a wide variety and richness of food and folklore representing a blend of ethnic origins.

See alsoPachacamac .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

José Barbagelata and Juan Bromley, Evolución urbana de Lima (1945).

David Collier, Squatters and Oligarchs: Authoritarian Rule and Policy Change in Peru (1976).

Alberto Flores Galindo, Aristocracía y plebe: Lima, 1760–1830 (1984).

María Rostoworowski, Pachacámac y el Señor de los Milagros (1992).

Alfonso Quiroz, Domestic and Foreign Finance in Modern Peru, 1850–1950: Financing Visions of Development (1993).

Additional Bibliography

Charney, Paul. Indian Society in the Valley of Lima, Peru, 1532–1824. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2001.

Dietz, Henry A. Urban Poverty, Political Participation, and the State: Lima, 1970–1990. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998.

Higgins, James. Lima: A Cultural History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Jaime, Joseph A. La ciudad, la crisis y las salidas: Democracia y desarrollo en espacios urbanos meso. Lima: Alternativa Centro de Investigación Social y Educación Popular, 2005.

Jouve Martín, José Ramón. Esclavos de la ciudad letrada: Esclavitud, escritura y colonialismo en Lima (1650–1700). Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 2005.

Ludeña Urquizo, Wiley. Piqueras, Belaúnde, la Agrupación Espacio: Tres buenos tigres: Vanguardia y urbanismo en el Perú del siglo XX. Lima: Urbes, 2004.

Mills, Kenneth. Idolatry and Its Enemies: Colonial Andean Religion and Extirpation, 1640–1750. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997.

Pérez-Mallaína Bueno, Pablo Emilio. Retrato de una ciudad en crisis: La sociedad limeña ante el movimiento sísmico de 1746. Seville, Spain: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos, 2001.

Sifuentes de la Cruz, Luis Enrique. Las murallas de Lima en el proceso histórico del Perú: Ensayo acerca de la historia y evolución urbana de la ciudad de Lima entre los siglos XVII y XIX. Lima: Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, 2004.

Van Deusen, Nancy E. Between the Sacred and the Worldly: The Institutional and Cultural Practice of Recogimiento in Colonial Lima. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001.

                                    Alfonso W. Quiroz