Where to shop in Lima? - Markets for Alpaca fashion and souvenirs in Lima

Lima is located in the desert-like Pacific coastal plain of Peru, a few kilometers from the sea. It was built on the alluvial fan that the Rio Rimac, coming from the Andes, has heaped up at its mouth into the Pacific.

The Lima-Callao metropolitan area is Peru’s most important industrial and commercial center. Almost three-quarters of industrial goods are produced here, including textiles and clothing, footwear, foodstuffs and pharmaceuticals. Callao is the country’s most important port.

Lima is also the country’s cultural metropolis. In addition to many educational institutions, theaters and museums, the city has the oldest university in South America, the University of San Marcos, founded in 1551. In the center of the old town, which is laid out like a chessboard in the typical Spanish colonial style, there are other representative buildings from the colonial period, in addition to the Plaza de Armas with the cathedral from the 16th century.

Lima was founded in 1535 by the Spanish conqueror Franzisco Pizarro – after the defeat of the Inca Empire. Pizarro was assassinated a few years later in Lima, where his mummy is still kept in the cathedral.

In colonial times, Lima, as the capital of the Spanish Viceroyalty of Peru, was the leading city on the west coast of South America until the 18th century. It was the gateway to the silver mines of Potosi, located in Bolivia, which was the main source of Spanish silver wealth until the end of the 18th century.

The city also held the trade monopoly for all goods produced in the viceroyalty.