Historic Centre of Lima
World Heritage Site in Peru
The Historic Centre of Lima (Spanish: Centro histórico de Lima) is the historic city centre of the city of Lima, the capital of Peru. Located in the city's districts of Lima and Rímac, both in the Rímac Valley, it consists of two areas: the first is the Monumental Zone established by the Peruvian government in 1972, and the second one—contained within the first one—is the World Heritage Site established by UNESCO in 1988, whose buildings are marked with the organisation's black-and-white shield.
Founded on 18 January 1535, by Conquistador Francisco Pizarro, the city served as the political, administrative, religious and economic capital of the Viceroyalty of Peru, as well as the most important city of Spanish South America. The evangelisation process at the end of the 16th century allowed the arrival of several religious orders and the construction of churches and convents. The University of San Marcos, the so-called "Dean University of the Americas", was founded on 12 May 1551, and began its functions on 2 January 1553 in the Convent of Santo Domingo.
Originally contained by the now-demolished city walls that surrounded it, the Cercado de Lima features numerous architectural monuments that have survived the serious damage caused by a number of different earthquakes over the centuries, such as the Convent of San Francisco, the largest of its kind in this part of the world. Many of the buildings are joint creations of artisans, local artists, architects and master builders from the Old Continent. It is among the most important tourist destinations in Peru.
History
The city of Lima, the capital of Peru, was founded by Francisco Pizarro on 18 January 1535, and given the name "City of the Kings" (Ciudad de Los Reyes). Nevertheless, with time its original name persisted, which may come from one of two sources: Either the Aymara language lima-limaq (meaning "yellow flower"), or the Spanish pronunciation of the Quechuan word rimaq (meaning "talker", and actually written and pronounced limaq in the nearby Quechua I languages).
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Historic Centre of Lima” as world Heritage Site in Peru. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as world Heritage Site in Peru. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3320442. VIAF identifies the subject as 147928770. The Library of Congress control number is n98057714. Authority coordinates are -12.051, -77.043. 1 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1972, 1988, 1535 and 1551.
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This entry incorporates text from “Historic Centre of Lima” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.