When was Lima founded, and why is it the City of the Kings?
Lima, the City of the Kings, is founded
La fundación de Lima
18 January 1535. On 18 January 1535 Francisco Pizarro founded the Ciudad de los Reyes, the City of the Kings, on the Rímac river near the Pacific coast, naming it for the Magi…
Where: Peru, Lima
What happened
On 18 January 1535 Francisco Pizarro founded the Ciudad de los Reyes, the City of the Kings, on the Rímac river near the Pacific coast, naming it for the Magi because the site was chosen at Epiphany. He wanted a capital on the sea, linked to Panama and Spain, rather than in the Inca mountains at Cusco. The name Lima, from the river, soon won out. Lima became the seat of the Viceroyalty of Peru in 1542 and for two centuries the richest city in Spanish South America, with the continent's oldest university, San Marcos, and great convents. Pizarro was murdered there in 1541 by followers of his rival Almagro.
Say it
Pizarro fundó Lima en 1535 y la llamó Ciudad de los Reyes.
Pizarro founded Lima in 1535 and called it the City of the Kings.
Why it matters
Lima's coastal Spanish, Spain's administrative centre in South America, became one of the model varieties of American Spanish and the capital of today's Peru.
There today
- Eat
- Lima is the city that made Peruvian food famous: try a midday ceviche, raw fish cooked by lime juice, with sweet potato and toasted corn; see ceviche.
Read about it
Connected
- Cajamarca: Pizarro captures Atahualpa (16 November 1532)
- Cajamarca: Pizarro captures Atahualpa (16 November 1532)
- The Viceroyalty of New Spain is created (1535)
Sources
- Francisco Pizarro — World History Encyclopedia
- Colonial Government in the Spanish Empire — World History Encyclopedia