Lime celebrates tomorrow, January 18 , 479 years since its foundation Spanish. As every year, celebrations, activities, reports and memories of the "Lima that was" are prepared, but little is said about its history. In this note we tell you a little about how Lima was conceived since Francisco Pizarro founded it during the first half of the 16th century and some curious facts related to its evolution and transformation. Did you know that Av. Arequipa is 6 kilometers long or that the Quilca jirón is probably the only one that still retains its original characteristics? The following historical note about Lima, the City of Kings, deals with this and more.
This Saturday, January 18, our Capital will celebrate 479 years of Spanish foundation, which was baptized by Francisco Pizarro as the City of Kings, in homage to the King and Queen of Spain:Carlos I and his mother Juana I and for the festivity that commemorates the arrival of the Three Wise Men to Bethlehem, this also gave rise to its nickname of "the three times crowned City of the Kings". However, the toponymic name of Quechua origin of the region -Limac- was always maintained, which little by little was consolidated over the founding name, until it passed into Spanish, where the last letter was eliminated, thus leaving the current name of the capital:Lime.
But Lima was not the first option chosen by Francisco Pizarro to found the capital of Peru. In 1533 he thought that the Jauja valley could be a good place, but due to the distance from the sea and the problems that the domestic animals brought from Spain had due to the cold and the altitude, the idea was discarded. The same thing happened with the attempt to found the capital in Sangallán, very close to Pisco.
It was so that in 1534, Pizarro sent an expedition from Pachacámac to look for a strategic place and they found one that was close to the sea, and seemed like a safe place in case of attacks, he had with good weather, fruit trees and roads, it also had a population of approximately fifty thousand people who were dedicated to agriculture and fishing. It was the lordship of the curaca Taulichusco .
Lima was the capital of the Viceroyalty of Peru and the largest and most important city in South America during the Spanish regime and in 1543 it became the seat of the Royal Court.
That same year the temple and convent of Santo Domingo were installed in Lima, near the Plaza de Armas and associated with two patron saints of the city:Santa Rosa de Lima and Saint Martin de Porres, was how the Spaniards were installing the Catholic religion in the citizens of the new city.
According to the chroniclers of the time, Pizarro gave the city a triangular shape. It is even said that the conqueror traced with his sword the initial quadrilateral of what is currently the Plaza Mayor and indicated where the Governor's Palace, the Cathedral and the Cabildo would be.
The original sketch of the city is lost, but it marked nine streets long by 13 wide, divided like a chessboard. Hence the name of Damero de Pizarro. The total number of blocks was 177.
In 1562, the second district was built, located on the other side of the Rímac River. In 1610 Lima had its first stone bridge, at that time Lima had around 26 thousand inhabitants, where blacks represented 40% and whites 38% of the population.
In the 16th century, to protect the city from pirates and criminals, a public lighting service was established. In 1851 Ramón Castilla founded the first gas company that installed 500 lights in the Plaza Mayor and around the city.
A few years later, the telegraph appeared with a line between Lima and Callao and then the telephone, which initially was only a service for the state.
Thanks to the exploitation of guano, in the second half of the 19th century modernity arrived in the city, with the installation of the telegraph line, the telephone, the train, the automobile and the light. Before this Lima was a city of shadows, deserted, neglected, without water, without police and without lighting.
Unfortunately, the war with Chile broke out and with it the battles of San Juan and Miraflores that ended with the Chilean army entering Lima on January 17, 1881, leaving the city in extreme collapse and tremendous delay.
At the end of the 19th century, the first car arrived in Lima, leaving behind carriages and horses.
And it was only in 1900, after 14 years since electricity had arrived in Lima, that the Santa Rosa electricity company replaced gas lighting with electricity and provided light to the city .
With the president Augusto B. Leguía , the Aristocratic Republic arrived, which was concerned with turning Lima into a modern and progressive city. Between 1919 and 1930, the urban structure of Lima was built that would last until the 70s. Before that, the southern limit of the city was the current Paseo Colón avenue and to reach the Miraflores, Barranco and Chorrillos resorts there was no other way. to take the train or tram.
In 1921, with the vertiginous growth of the population, urban areas appeared. Between Lima and Miraflores, a 6-kilometer-long avenue named Leguía was laid out, today called Av. Arequipa, one of the most important circulation arteries in Lima.
During the administration of President Manuel A. Odría , a series of public works were undertaken in Lima, such as the construction of the Social Security Employee Hospital, today called Rebagliati. In addition, it contributed to the development of education in the capital with the construction of Large School Units, premises for teacher training centers, the La Cantuta Men's Normal School and the Monterrico Women's Normal School.
he also added to the urban landscape of Lima the building of the Ministry of Education, the tallest and most modern building of the time, located in the University Park. Thus Lima was developing, each time with a greater appearance of neighborhood units and public places of entertainment such as the National Stadium , inaugurated on October 27, 1952.
Initially, Lima was founded on the Rímac river valley, but today it extends over large desert areas and even other valleys. The city is located in the coastal desert of Peru, at the foot of the western slope of the central Andes and is fed by the slopes of the Rímac, Chillón and Lurín rivers.
The Peruvian capital has a metropolitan area that is made up of subregions, whose ends are called cones:Cercado de Lima, Cono Este, Cono Norte, Cono Sur and the residential and commercial area .
El jirón Quilca is the oldest street in Lima that preserves its pre-Hispanic layout, as it is built on the Inca road that divided the city from east to west and led to the current district of Rimac. All other routes disappeared under the European grid.
Currently, Lima has a population of almost 8 million inhabitants in its 43 districts. It is considered the political, cultural, financial and commercial center of the country. Internationally, it ranks fifth among the most populated cities in Latin America and the Caribbean; and it is one of the thirty most populous in the world.