Historic Centre of Lima

The Historic Centre of Lima was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1988 in recognition of its extraordinary concentration of colonial Spanish architecture and its role as the political and administrative heart of the Spanish Americas for nearly three centuries. Founded in 1535 by the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro on the banks of the Rímac River, Lima became the capital of the Viceroyalty of Peru and the most important Spanish city in South America. The original layout followed the grid plan mandated by Spanish colonial law, with a central plaza surrounded by the cathedral, government palace, municipal building and main church, a pattern repeated across Spanish settlements throughout the Americas.

The Plaza de Armas of Lima, also called the Plaza Mayor, is the symbolic and geographical centre of both the historic city and of Peru's public life. The square is framed on three sides by colonnaded porticoes built in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and on the fourth by the Presidential Palace, originally constructed as the Palace of the Viceroys in the sixteenth century. Military parades, national celebrations and daily ceremonies take place here, and the changing of the guard at the Presidential Palace is a daily tourist event that draws crowds to the north side of the plaza.

The Cathedral of Lima, begun in 1535 and rebuilt several times after the catastrophic earthquakes that have periodically battered the city, occupies the eastern side of the Plaza de Armas. Its Renaissance façade with Baroque interior houses the tomb of Francisco Pizarro, who founded both the city and the cathedral. The church of San Francisco, a short walk from the plaza, is one of the finest examples of Spanish colonial religious architecture in South America, with a massive stone portal, a Mudéjar ceiling of painted cedar, and Sevillian tilework that took decades to complete.

The catacombs beneath the church of San Francisco were discovered in 1943 and contain the skeletal remains of an estimated 70,000 people interred during colonial times, laid to rest in circular pits arranged in rows beneath the church. The ossuaries are one of the most extensive in the Americas and a macabre record of colonial Lima's mortality from disease, earthquakes and the violence of conquest and slavery. Visitors descend through the stone arches to see thousands of skulls and bones stacked in intricate geometric patterns, a haunting counterpoint to the baroque grandeur above ground.

The Government Palace, rebuilt multiple times after earthquake damage, now serves as the official residence and office of Peru's president. Its eighteenth-century façade faces the Plaza de Armas and is flanked by a changing of the guard ceremony each morning that draws tourists and schoolchildren. The interior contains elaborate salons, portraits of Peruvian presidents and a throne room that reflects both the colonial and republican periods of Peruvian history.

The architectural character of Lima's historic centre is a blend of European Baroque and neoclassical forms adapted to the local desert environment and built using local materials including stone, adobe and cedar. The famous wooden balconies that project over the streets are an architectural feature unique to Lima, derived from Moorish traditions transmitted through Andalusian building practice and adapted to the earthquake-prone coastal desert. The balconies were built without nails in many cases, using mortise and tenon joinery, and their carved latticework provided ventilation and privacy for colonial-era women who were not permitted to appear in public windows.

The concentration of colonial Spanish architecture in a single grid-plan plaza makes it one of the most intact examples of Spanish colonial urban design in the Americas.

The wooden balconies, catacombs of San Francisco, and Pizarro's tomb in the cathedral give tangible physical connection to the full arc of Lima's history.

A UNESCO World Heritage Site inscribed in 1988, the historic centre remains the symbolic heart of Peruvian public life, with daily ceremonies still held in the Plaza de Armas.