49 Fun Facts About Lima

Which fictional bear's Aunt Lucy lives in the Home for Retired Bears in Lima?

Paddington was first written as a stowaway from darkest Africa; Michael Bond switched his home to Peru after his agent pointed out that Africa has no bears.

Which body of water does Lima overlook?

The Pacific made Lima a capital: the Spanish chose this coastal site over Cusco, the old Inca capital high in the Andes, because ships could keep it in touch with Spain.

Which river flows through the centre of Lima?

The Rímac pours steeply out of the high Andes and laid down the flat fan of gravel on which the Spanish built their city; it is still the chief supplier of Lima's drinking water.

Which conquistador founded Lima in 1535?

Francisco Pizarro died in the city he founded: in 1541 followers of a rival conquistador's son stormed his palace and killed him, and his tomb lies in Lima Cathedral.

Under what name was Lima founded?

City of the Kings honoured the three Magi, because the Spanish founded it in January 1535, close to the feast of the Epiphany; their three crowns still sit on Lima's coat of arms.

Lima's name likely comes from a Quechua oracle's name meaning what?

Talker, or speaker: Spanish tongues turned the Quechua word into Lima, and the native name soon pushed aside the grander title the conquistadors had given their capital.

Which seaside city holds Lima's seaport and main airport?

Callao was where Inca gold and silver were loaded onto ships for Spain, which made the port a magnet for raiders; Francis Drake was among those who attacked it.

Lima's international airport is named after which person?

Jorge Chávez was a Peruvian aviator who in 1910 became the first to fly across the Alps, then crashed as he came in to land in Italy and died of his injuries at 23.

Lima is the second most populous city in South America, behind which other?

São Paulo is the only South American city with more residents within its limits; Lima owes its own size to migration from the Andes, which multiplied its population several times over after 1940.

Lima syndrome, in which captors come to sympathise with their hostages, mirrors the syndrome named after which city?

Stockholm gave its name in 1973, when bank staff held hostage for six days ended up siding with the robbers and tried to shield them from the police.

What do people in Lima call the fine sea-mist drizzle of the city's winters?

Garúa is nearly all the precipitation Lima gets: the mist condenses rather than falls as rain, yet it is enough to turn bare coastal hills green each winter.

Which president of Peru ordered the 1997 commando raid that ended Lima's four-month embassy hostage crisis?

Alberto Fujimori's commandos tunnelled under the ambassador's residence and stormed it after 126 days, saving all but one of the 72 hostages; he was later jailed for crimes in office.

Which cold current helps keep rainfall in Lima so low?

The Humboldt Current chills the sea air so that it yields fog rather than rain, which helps make the coast around Lima one of the driest places on Earth.

Which general's arrival in 1821 led Lima to sign a Declaration of Independence?

José de San Martín had already led an army across the Andes when he became Protector of Peru; he abruptly resigned in 1822 after a private meeting with Bolívar and left the country.

Which 1824 battle decided Peru's War of Independence?

Ayacucho saw an outnumbered patriot army rout the royalists and take the Spanish viceroy prisoner; his surrender secured independence for Peru and the young republics around it.

Export income from which commodity funded Lima's expansion in the 1850s?

Guano is seabird droppings, dug from islands off the coast and shipped to Europe as fertiliser; the windfall let the state replace Lima's old viceregal buildings with new public ones.

Which cocktail is credited to Victor Morris, an American who opened a bar in Lima in 1916?

Pisco sour was Morris's take on the whiskey sour, made with the local grape brandy; Peru now honours the drink with a day of its own, on the first Saturday of every February.

Which neighbouring country's army occupied Lima from 1881 to 1883?

Chile's troops held Lima for almost three years and stripped the National Library of its books; in 2007, more than a century later, Chile sent nearly 4,000 of them back.

Which 1746 disaster flattened much of Lima and sent a wave that wiped out its port?

An earthquake struck on the night of 28 October 1746 and left most of Lima in ruins; the wave that followed swept away the port, which was rebuilt on a new site and given a vast fortress.

What are Lima's self-built shanty settlements called?

Pueblos jóvenes means young towns, the name squatter camps took as they became permanent; cardboard and matting gave way to brick, and the state ended up granting land titles.

Which Maoist insurgent group brought years of bombings and assassinations to Lima from the 1980s?

Shining Path began in the remote Andes and carried its war to the capital, where its leader, Abimael Guzmán, was finally caught in 1992, hiding in a house that doubled as a ballet studio.

Which Lima-born photographer took the 1997 Vanity Fair portraits of Diana, Princess of Wales?

Mario Testino studied law and economics in Lima, then moved to London in 1976 and waited tables at night while he built a portfolio; the Diana shoot made him famous far beyond fashion.

Which novel follows five travellers killed on the road between Lima and Cusco?

The Bridge of San Luis Rey won Thornton Wilder a Pulitzer in 1928; in it a friar who sees the rope bridge fall digs into the five lives to learn whether they ended by chance or by design.

Which pre-Inca pilgrimage sanctuary stands just south-east of Lima?

Pachacámac drew pilgrims for more than a thousand years, into Inca times; within months of capturing the Inca ruler Atahualpa, the Spanish sent horsemen to seize its temple gold.

What is the Peruvian term for the ancient adobe pyramids scattered across Lima?

Huacas were sacred things to Andean peoples, from shrines to mountains and waterfalls; an early Spanish chronicler, seeing the dead laid in them, took the word to mean a burial place.

Which carved-wood feature of Lima's colonial mansions marks its UNESCO-listed Historic Centre?

Balconies of the closed box type were singled out by UNESCO when it described the old centre, and in the 1990s a mayor launched an Adopt a Balcony campaign to get them restored.

Which October procession is Lima's biggest religious event?

Lord of Miracles is a mural of Christ painted in the 1600s by an enslaved man from Angola; each October vast crowds dressed in purple follow a copy of it through the streets of Lima.

Which saint, born in Lima in 1586, was the first person from the Americas to be canonised?

Rose of Lima cut off her hair and blistered her face with hot peppers to put off suitors; canonised in 1671, she became a patron saint of Peru and of the Philippines.

Lima's Plaza de Acho is the oldest what in the Americas?

Bullring: Acho opened in 1766 after a Lima grandee sought leave to build a fixed arena for the bullfights held at Carnival, and it is still in use more than 250 years on.

Peru were playing which country in Lima in 1964 when a riot led to football's deadliest stadium disaster?

Argentina led 1-0 in an Olympic qualifier when a late Peru equaliser was ruled out; fans ran on, police fired tear gas into the stands, and 328 people died in the crush at closed exit gates.

Which football club completes Lima's Big Three with Alianza and Universitario?

Sporting Cristal is named after a beer: shareholders of the Backus brewery founded the club in 1955 and called it after their best-selling brand, and its players are still nicknamed the Brewers.

Which Lima stadium staged the relocated 2019 Copa Libertadores final?

Estadio Monumental, Peru's biggest ground, took the final when street protests ruled out Santiago; Flamengo beat River Plate 2-1 there with two goals in the last five minutes.

Which Nobel laureate set his first novel, The Time of the Hero, in a Lima military academy?

Mario Vargas Llosa had entered the Leoncio Prado academy himself as a cadet in 1950; the novel's picture of bullying and violence there made his name when he was still in his twenties.

Which multi-sport event did Lima host in 2019 and win the right to stage again in 2027?

Pan American Games: Lima was handed the 2027 edition in 2024 after the first choice, Barranquilla in Colombia, was stripped of it when payments to the organisers were missed.

Which Lima restaurant topped The World's 50 Best Restaurants list in 2023?

Central serves Peru by altitude: each course of its tasting menu is built from one height, starting below sea level and climbing to more than 4,000 metres up in the Andes.

What is Peru's national dish?

Ceviche owes its bite to limes, a fruit unknown in Peru until the Spanish arrived with citrus trees; coastal fishermen had been eating part of their catch raw long before that.

What are Lima's Peruvian-Chinese restaurants called?

Chifas grew out of the cooking of Chinese workers, most of them from Guangdong, who began arriving in the 19th century; their fried rice, arroz chaufa, is now everyday Peruvian food.

Lima is home to an international research centre devoted to which crop, first grown in the Andes?

Potato: the International Potato Center, founded in Lima in 1971, keeps living collections of the crop in its gene bank so that no variety of this native of the Andes is lost.

Which district is Lima's financial centre?

San Isidro grew up around El Olivar, an olive grove begun in 1560 with saplings shipped from Spain; in recent decades the banks have left the old centre for its office towers.

Larcomar, the clifftop mall above the ocean, is in which district of Lima?

Miraflores took off when a 19th-century railway let wealthy families leave Lima's crowded centre and build mansions near the sea; it is still one of the richest districts in the city.

Which bohemian seaside district of Lima is known for its wooden Bridge of Sighs?

Barranco began as a fashionable beach resort for Lima's upper class in the 19th century; today it is the artists' quarter, where painters, musicians and designers live and work.

Lima's Parque de la Reserva holds a Guinness World Record for its night-time circuit of what?

Fountains: the Magic Water Circuit, opened in 2007, is the largest fountain complex in any public park; the park's name honours the reservists who defended Lima against invasion in 1881.

Which district of Lima is the most populous in Peru, with more than a million residents?

San Juan de Lurigancho is home to about one in nine people in Lima province; the capital's first metro line was extended out to it on a long viaduct, opening in full in 2014.

As of 2025, which is the tallest building in Peru?

Torre Banco de la Nación replaced the state bank's old headquarters, gutted by fire during a protest march in 2000; its lower floors were first used for the 2015 World Bank and IMF meetings.

Which bus rapid transit system began running through Lima in 2010?

El Metropolitano beat the trains: when its buses began carrying passengers, the city's first metro line, started in the 1980s, was still unfinished, and it did not open in full until 2014.

The megaport of Chancay, opened north of Lima in 2024, is majority-owned by a state shipping firm from which country?

China's COSCO holds 60 percent of the port, with a Peruvian mining company owning the rest; Xi Jinping opened it by video link in November 2024 while visiting Peru for a summit.

Which Lima daily, founded in 1839, is one of the oldest Spanish-language newspapers in the world?

El Comercio has been in the hands of the Miró Quesada family since the 1870s; the state gazette El Peruano, launched under Bolívar in 1825, is older still, but it is an official journal.

Which melody, first heard in a Lima theatre in 1913, became a worldwide pop hit in 1970?

El Cóndor Pasa was written by Daniel Alomía Robles for a musical play about miners in the Andes; Paul Simon added English words and recorded it with Art Garfunkel 57 years later.

Lima's coat of arms was granted in 1537 by Queen Joanna of Castile and which emperor, her son?

Charles V ruled in his mother's name: Joanna was queen of Castile for half a century but spent most of it shut away at Tordesillas, declared unfit to govern, while he held the power.