Arequipa

Long before the Spanish arrived, the Chili valley was farmed by Andean peoples, and Inca tradition, recorded by the chronicler Garcilaso de la Vega, credits the Inca with settling hamlets such as Yanahuara, Cayma, Paucarpata and Characato. On 15 August 1540 Juan de la Torre and Garcí Manuel de Carbajal, one of Francisco Pizarro's lieutenants, founded the Spanish town on a grid of 49 blocks, and in 1541 a royal decree of Charles V made it a city. Arequipa grew wealthy and loyal to the Crown, its great convents such as Santa Catalina and Santa Teresa becoming centres of social and cultural life.

The ground has shaped the city at every turn. The earthquake of 1582 made sillar, the white volcanic stone, the standard building material; the eruption of Huaynaputina in 1600 forced more rebuilding; the earthquake of 1784 destroyed much of the city, and that of 1868 caused enormous damage again. Many of the buildings of the centre today are 19th-century reconstructions standing on colonial foundations.

After independence Arequipa became Peru's rebel city, the scene of more than seven uprisings or revolutions before 1850, and was called the "collective caudillo" of the country. Victory in the revolution of 1867 helped bring the railway, which made it the hub of southern Peru's wool trade. During the War of the Pacific, President Lizardo Montero declared it the capital of Peru in 1882. The 20th century brought the airport in 1940, an industrial park after the earthquakes of 1958 and 1960, and rapid migration from the altiplano. In 2000 UNESCO inscribed 332 hectares of the historic centre as a World Heritage Site, and on 23 June 2001 an earthquake of magnitude 8.4 struck the city.

Regionalism is the city's defining trait. Arequipeños have long seen their city as a counterweight to Lima, a tradition of revolt studied by historians from Basadre to Bustamante y Rivero, and the nickname "City-Caudillo" survives. The city is the official seat of Peru's Constitutional Court, set there by law under the 1993 constitution, and is known as the country's legal capital.

Its literary tradition runs from Mariano Melgar, a founding figure of Peruvian Romanticism, to the Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa, who was born in Arequipa. Loncco, the speech of the farmers who lived around the city, has its own genre of poetry and survives in the oldest districts. The city was also a centre of trained composers, and the sad yaraví song and the marinera dance are part of its musical identity.

Catholic devotion is strong, centred on the Virgin of Chapi, whose pilgrimage every 1 May draws huge crowds, and on the convents of the centre. Football means FBC Melgar, founded in 1915, whose rivalry with Cienciano of Cusco is one of the oldest in Peru. In 2019 UNESCO added Arequipa to its Creative Cities Network for gastronomy, and in 2020 to its Global Network of Learning Cities.

The city of Arequipa had a projected population of about 1.2 million in 2025, making it the second most populous city in Peru after Lima. The urban area spreads across 14 districts in the valley and into the conurbated districts around them, climbing the desert slopes towards Misti, whose north-eastern suburbs now sit on the flanks of the volcano.

It is Peru's second most industrialised city and one of its most economically active. Factories turn out manufactured goods and textiles from camelid wool, the region's copper and molybdenum concentrates are produced and traded through the city, and the Southern Railway links it with the port of Matarani and with Cusco and Puno. Universities, led by the National University of San Agustín, give the city a large student population, and shopping centres opened since 2010 have changed how many families shop.

The historic centre is still a working downtown of offices, churches and shops, with streets such as Mercaderes pedestrianised, while most people live in the newer districts beyond. Water is a constant concern in the desert: the city's supply has faced repeated problems, including ravines set off by volcanic ash in 2024. COVID-19 hit hard, and in July and August 2020 the local health system collapsed.

Arequipa is sometimes called the Peruvian city with the greatest diversity of dishes, with more than 500 traditional dishes documented. The heart of the cuisine is the picantería, a traditional lunch restaurant recognised in 2014 as Cultural Heritage of the Nation, which adapts its menu to what is in season and starts the meal with a hearty soup.

The best-known dishes are chupe de camarones, a rich soup originally made with crayfish; rocoto relleno, a hot red rocoto pepper stuffed with minced meat and baked under cheese; and adobo arequipeño, pork marinated in chicha and spices, eaten at breakfast and claimed by the district of Cayma as its birthplace. Ocopa, a sauce of huacatay herb, chilli and peanuts served over boiled potatoes, and solterito de queso are among the other traditional picantería dishes.

For something sweet there is queso helado, which despite its name is a cinnamon-scented frozen milk dessert, and buñuelos, fried dough fritters. The traditional drinks are chicha de guiñapo, made from black maize and served in the picanterías, and the region's anise liqueur, taken with the breakfast adobo. San Camilo Market is a starting point for food walks.