National University of San Marcos
public research university in Lima, Peru
The National University of San Marcos (Spanish: Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, UNMSM) is a public research university located in Lima, the capital of Peru. In the Americas, it is the first officially established (privilege by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor) and the oldest continuously operating university.
The university started in the general studies that were offered in the convent of the Rosario of the order of Santo Domingo—the current Basilica and Convent of Santo Domingo—on July 1, 1548. Its official foundation was conceived by Fray Thomas de San Martín on May 12, 1551; with the decree of Emperor Charles I of Spain and V of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1571, it acquired the degree of pontifical granted by Pope Pius V, with which it ended up being named the "Royal and Pontifical University of the City of the Kings of Lima". It is also referred to as the "University of Lima" throughout the Viceroyalty.
The University of San Marcos has passed through several locations, of which it maintains and stands out: the "Casona de San Marcos", one of the buildings in the Historic Center of Lima that were recognized as World Heritage Sites by UNESCO in 1988. The University of San Marcos has 66 professional schools, grouped into 20 faculties, and these in turn in 5 academic areas. Through its "Domingo Angulo" historical archive, the university preserves documents and writings. In 2019, the "Colonial Fund and Foundational Documents of the National University of San Marcos: 1551–1852" was incorporated into the UNESCO Memory of the World Register.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q270145. VIAF identifies the subject as 5671168048999038410003. The Library of Congress control number is n79091138. Authority coordinates are -12.058, -77.083. 3 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1548, 1551, 1571 and 1988.
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This entry incorporates text from “National University of San Marcos” 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.